Steve Brauntuch: Hills, valleys define college

In a Daily Pennsylvanian goodbye column, there's usually one cathartic moment during finals that inspires a four-year retrospective on good times, missed opportunities and future uncertainty. After the writer opines on that moment, he reminisces and prognosticates for a few paragraphs before discussing the lesson he learned and offering some advice for the future based on that lesson.

This presents a slight problem for me, because such a catharsis hasn't really happened in the last few weeks. I'm also not really one to sit around waxing poetic about anything outside of the sports world. I don't really want to talk about the future, because that stresses me out. And I can't really point to the one most important lesson I've learned in four years at Penn.

But advice? That I can do. Not my own, of course. Clearly, those who have read my columns know that I have little original thought to share with you, the casual reader. In fact, I'm often told that the vast majority of my thoughts, jokes and ideas are just stolen from Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart and Letterman, a suggestion which may or may not be true.

However, back in my Camp Mah-Kee-Nac days, a wise tennis maven named Jon Kahane gave me some advice that helped turn me into the above-average doubles player that I am today. And because it helped my tennis game so much, I decided to apply it to all aspects of life.

Like most sports, tennis is a game of hills and valleys. You're never going to play a perfect match, and at some point, your opponent is going to find some momentum and run off a few games. To win a tennis match, you've got to withstand the valleys and hold out for the hills. If, when each hill comes, you give it everything you've got, the match is yours. I'd say it's a lot like carpe diem, but that's another Kahane lecture based around the approach shot.

And really, what is college if not a series of hills and valleys? Good days and bad ones? Doesn't every friendship or relationship made here have its high and low points? I've loved my four years here at Penn. I've made great friends, had great experiences and taken great classes. For all of the great friendships, experiences or classes, there were a few duds -- valleys, if you will. And I've survived them all.

I've worked at the DP for literally my entire college career. For every nine nights that I left the office smiling, there was one where I left enraged. And yet, I always came back the next day, putting my anger behind me and waiting for the next hill to arrive.

I've made more than a handful of friends in four years. For every nine days that I loved hanging out with them, there was one where I wanted to strangle them. Just ask them -- I'm sure they'll tell you all about it. And after every conflict, I came back seeking or offering forgiveness, ready to welcome the next hill with open arms.

I've spent nights wandering between horrible frat parties. I've sat in classes and gotten mad at professors for wasting my valuable video game time. But nine times out of 10, the parties were fun and the classes were good, so I sucked it up during the valleys and held out for the hills.

We've all got stories about getting up off the mat, putting our past behind us and using other stale metaphors to describe this routine activity. But those people who haven't spent one moment in the last week wishing that college would continue are missing out. Each of us graduating on Monday can run off a list of tremendous memories from their four years here -- and it's probably easier than reciting the negative ones. Has it been the best four years of everybody's life? Probably not, and I'm getting a little sick of people asking me that, anyway. But for most of us, the positive experiences have certainly outweighed the negatives, and that should be our focus.

So for me, maybe this has been the lesson of college. It's probably more important than anything I learned in class. Call it accentuating the positives, call it looking at the glass as half full or call it a dorky saying that was better left on the tennis court. I've had an amazing four years here because I learned to cope with the valleys and capitalize on the hills. I hope you have, too. See? I always knew listening to Jon would pay off.

Steve Brauntuch is a senior communications major from Tenafly, N.J., and former editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Statler and Waldorf appears on Wednesdays..

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