Goosebumps crawl through me in waves every day as I sit through a lecture. In the cup of a black coffee lies a desire to awaken an exhausted student that’s fighting to find a way to impact the world. For the past few years, I’ve been conducting my own study, testing ‘real world’ experience vs college education to grow my own opinion of the importance and necessity of each. I began by ditching the normal high school to university path, joining the world of full-time work, moving out after high school to the other side of the world, navigating my way through foreign countries I dreamed of as a kid.

Traveling was my absolute passion but it was also admittedly the perfect mechanism to avoid dealing with my intimidation and uncertainty of university, leading me to, at times, deny the value of a $50,000+ piece of paper. Towards the end of the past 5 or so years I’ve been traveling, I felt a sense of readiness to move on to something that’s going to cure this lack of purpose or meaning I had been struggling with. Perhaps I grew too comfortable traveling a world that once both frightened and excited me and while I still love it, there was just something missing. I wanted to transition my education to a classroom that strays incredibly far outside my comfort zone to learn about the world I’ve been witnessing firsthand the past few years. A need to not only be a part of it but to carry the knowledge to help preserve it.

I’ve always known the planet as needing to be saved, and I’ve noticed that each student that wakes up to go to classes, regardless of age or major, realizes it. Can traveling the world on $10,000 a year be as valuable as paying $10,000 a year in tuition?

The comparison of jet lag to staying up all night studying has begun. And while some may argue, I have to say I’m a really big fan of both. And as I listen to those silently laughing at the fact I’m still a student at 23 years old, I will happily and understandably laugh along but I’ll never find remorse in my decisions. Instead, I’m forever grateful for realizing the importance of both seeing the world to understand it and reading about it in a textbook.

I’m entirely exhausted learning the ropes of being a full-time student again but I can’t tell you how good it feels, to wake up each day to a new cup of coffee, inspired to learn and find a way, my way, to hopefully one day make a tiny difference in the world that I have absolutely fallen in love with. Being exhausted with a purpose is a beautiful thing.

I must say: it’s never too late. There’s no right time to go to school, to travel the world, to change your path, to begin.