Life as a Journey and How to Make Meaning from it: Emily Tucker

 This semester we have talked a lot about different long-distance hikes, trails, and pilgrimages. This class has allowed me to analyze the different things that define how meaning is created through these long-distance adventures. We have heard from numerous different guest speakers who have experienced these trails personally and gave us their insights to their own personal experience in how these trails have given meaning to their lives. We also go to hear all of Dr. Redick's personal adventures on numerous different trails, as we continued to analyze common themes and symbols found in the pilgrim's journey. 

One thing that Dr. Redick mentioned in our last class was how our years at college are our journey right now. While not all of us will have the chance to go on an actual pilgrimage, we can still take the things that we have discussed and learned and apply them to our lives at the present. 

For my final blog post, I am going to discuss the various different ways in which the themes and symbols of this class can be applied to my life as a college student, and how it can mirror that of a long-distance hiker. 

One of the similarities between a college student and a long-distance hiker is the continual learning and growth. The transformation a hiker undergoes on their journey does not happen all at once. Similarly, college students are transformed by creating small daily habits, facing repeating challenges, and learning from mistakes. 

Another similarity lies in leaving the familiar. Hikers must "shake off the marketplace" as we have learned. Likewise, college students leave their homes (most for the first time in their life), leaving behind their childhood friends, their family, and the familiar routines that brought them security during their highschool life. 

College students also experience similarity in community. Hikers have a distinctual community and clear "culture" because every hiker is facing the same challenges and hardships of weather and external forces. College students are also placed in a distinct community where they are surrounded by people their age who all must accomplish similar tasks on the daily. A lot of people find their life-long friends in college because they are living out a unique experience with one another. 

In addition to the community, hikers and college students alike also must wrestle with feelings of isolation and alienation. When alone, a college student may begin to question life decisions such as what to major in, what their future looks like, and ultimately what they want their identity to be. Hikers, as we have seen, face similar struggles of identity, reflection, and what the future holds.

Shattering expectations and assumptions is something we discussed in depth when it came to hikers starting out their trail, but the same thing happens in college. Students arrive with an entire future and expectation of what college-life will look like in their head, but it is all shattered when they realize their fantasy is not as accurate as they might have believed it to be.

Lastly, the idea that the journey itself is the meaning is relevant. The purpose and meaning of a long-distance hike is not to reach a specified destination. Likewise, many college students graduate and realize that the purpose and meaning of the last four years was not merely to receive a diploma with a degree. It was the transformation they underwent and the person they became in those four years that added value and meaning to their life.

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