Have you ever read a poem on a park bench, springtime warm sunshine all around and the words nurture a reading adventure in sound, shape, and color shifting energy into gratitude for this moment? Perhaps a return to a group of folks who have also read the poem is where a voice begins speaking jazzy notes on how the poem technically works intellect and emotion? Discovery is the voice is yours, a new student. Humanities classes like poetry are continually helping us see ourselves more fully human.

How to access learning beyond high school that enriches any student’s life is what I ponder. In the season my life experiences now what I visualize is helping my 15-year-old son Darien prepare for a Zen University college track. Calm attentiveness or being zen appears counterintuitive for a first year away from a familiar home. Possibility is there though for an experience of thinking and emoting in multiverse ways that a 9 to 5 work gig cannot afford: structured open time.

Likely true that currently an American college experience has not enough zen because the university statistic still holds that for every ten freshmen who begin in the fall when springtime rolls around—only half will still be enrolled. What gives? My guess is that uncertainty on materialistic life like rent, food, transportation and more plus social loneliness while at college account for a 50 percent university attrition rate.

How can we help? Stating a clear goal seems required. Most 18-year-old young adults are unsure what major to choose. Exactly this uncertainty needs supporting. For curiosity is the point for building in plenty of structure that creates time and space to experience new learning in a variety of classes. Not having a major decided can be helpful not stressful for students taking the chance to simply explore interests throughout year one. Stated then is the clear goal to devote a zenful year or two simply proactive in a new learning culture.

In contrast, going to college and majoring in “Business” has counter-intuitive written all over the real goal. Businesses have a favorite major to hire once a four-year degree has been earned: Philosophy. Why in the world might a software company, an online sales corporation, or a social media advertiser wish to hire a humanities-based philosopher? Because she can nimbly think through empathy and finely tuned critical thinking filters. The business of business she can learn swiftly at work. A future-centered mindset and expansive world view cultivates over time in diverse degrees: Anthropology, Literature, Music, and Film as a few adventures. A business degree misses out on humanities life enrichment these majors afford, a high price to pay for a college major that analyzes “profits.”

Devoting four years to in-depth learning can widen life perspectives through immersion: histories, cultures, literatures, economies, arts, musics, culinaries and more are provided for a learner’s painting palette. What color to learn from today? What has been ending in America since the late 1960s are restrictions to colorful college knowledge based on inequity. Any community college across the United States has a student readiness program to accept any college learner today in the here and now of zen calm attentiveness. Debilitating stressful competitive academics is out and zen university is in.

Achieving a goal for a community college first or a four-year university directly happens best through planning plenty structured open time so necessary to be college zen. Reading texts that challenge, preparing thoughtful conversation notes, outlining writing projects, creating digital content, being rested for this day, balancing a financial budget, and recalling laundry-food-exercise-social dynamics that ensure a healthy zen university day are conscious choices to be mindfully present throughout a college life-scheduled 24 hours. Ambitious if thoughtfully preparing is then sure the word fits and every student deserves to go.

Framing an American youth’s learning years as K-16 remains a realistic goal when the process shifts from academic intensity during high school to prepare for college “acceptance.” Instead, scaling the family’s college search is for a newly and diversely challenging and supportive living environment. A good life happens on healthy finances and so four years of continual learning becomes accessible on budgets—grants, pre-planning, and minimal loans if any. When finding an optimal university location, thinking vividly outside the box helps.

Picture a family looking at maps across America to begin visualizing what local culture looks like surrounding a specific school. Maybe selecting three colleges (virtually every community college allies with a four-year university in close proximity) and traveling there to stay for a few days. The family and the potential college student in this family have an opportunity for “interviewing” the local environment. Choosing these college research locations relies on creative ingenuity to imagine comfort and challenge for your student’s new home where thriving has a healthy chance to happen.

Questions to ask of a university’s living culture are specific to identify whether the college’s surrounding area is supportive enough. Can an apartment be rented potentially shared with another college student? Is there a grocery store close? How about a locale movie theater? A lively venue to hear music? A public library to rely on for academic consistency if the college hours are helpful yet a wider time management choice is necessary? Is an inexpensive car necessary to purchase or can public transportation be reliable?

A family visiting a college location for a few days invests their time wisely for the student who will be succeeding in the area for four years. Say a college student attends 18 until 22 and lives healthily for another 50+ years. Four college years will influence half a century of living. An optimal university location choice based on surrounding quality-of-life factors will be critical to academic success.

Then why is freshman year so often dorm parties, fraternity or sorority rushes, and social overwhelm? If we decide on a new perspective that college provides a young adult a first chance to mature into ordinary empowered living while working towards a higher education then the answer is no to this familiar first year college experience. Yes instead to freshman year being year one to be supported on a material foundation and challenged to organize a thoughtful academic life including social empowering.

This summer my son Darien and I will tour around Berkeley, CA as one focused location to consider for his college selection. Berkeley City College (BCC) has a fantastic program to encourage students graduating from UC Berkeley four years after starting at BCC. Spending a proactive day walking around and checking out living culture—apartments, food culture, youth activity, spiritual supports, volunteer chances, and whatever a new student wonders how college life happens. I might not have answers, yet I will be listening and being there for curiosity research is the point.

This is a real day and what I hope is that being in the daily details of practical living creates a sense of college as accessible, not as lonely or overwhelming as might appear from the outside looking in. Is true that inside a classroom a social disconnect shift occurs at times if learning has gone elitist. A reason why college can be socially isolating derives from academic competition, a type of learning culture many across the US are not familiar with. Some are such as students attending private schools K-12 who bring a cultural life experience that continues to help them make sense of life at Harvard for $75,000 yearly tuition.

Darien’s grandfather attended Princeton at 18 and tuition today for a Princeton freshman in 2026-2027 is $65,500 plus living costs so $90,000 to be there, annually. Also, in the early 1970s, Darien’s grandfather and grandmother purchased a house on the Monterey Peninsula for a $345 monthly mortgage. Economic times have shifted radically the last half century and require a radically revised perspective on college—going can be financially possible and going is for an enriched sense of having an amazing life in a complex world: not entirely about earning money because of the degree, clearly.

Berkeley City College costs $48 per unit or $400 per unit until residency established which often happens through the exact supports I describe: being civic and registering as a voter, paying consistently on a rental, earning a driver’s license, and acquiring part-time work for a money focus. Meaning that many thousands of public high school students can have access to life-enriching education succeeding on different terms than how college has been historically frame worked.

Afterall, optimal learning is intrinsic, how each student self-perceives the quality of her or his life changing for the commitment to stay and earn a degree. When families focus on establishing a supportive living culture, which, in turn encourages strong academics, the college process is not as lonely for the student. The art of connecting socially with strangers is a reward and challenge and wonderful window into a brave new world for a beginning and continuing university achiever.

A confidence can be cultivated when new college students are being supported in myriad ways that are not academic. For the first time in life a student’s every decision is thoughtfully made independent. The consequences of decision making can be seen right away—academic challenges, health strengths, money management—and also a social flow where the student is a leader in the day, directly accountable for showing up. Being rested, well-nutritioned, and intellectually curious for the day are entirely intrinsic. Ultimately, setting a family goal for a student graduating four years later evolves as an achievable adventure—collaborative and joyful and puts the zen back in university life.

A worldview today can appear bleak. Why even read a poem on a springtime park bench enveloped in jazzy language? Fair enough question to ask and my response is picture America with thousands and thousands of college students living jazzy lives across the country for the exact reason of making a choice to read the poem, first, and living bravely enough to stay, earn a college degree, and develop a voice for articulating how poetry works on intellect and emotion. When any human has this nuanced capability then we have a world full of light and potential and bleak evolves into social justice change.

Simplicity is where we start effectively making a difference in the world right at our own coffee table. For example, most everywhere I have been traveling with my ceramic cup. Simply thinking about the care and well-being of one ceramic cup has made me more thoughtful all during the day, for real. And my encouragement for women going solo on travels worked fantastically well for me on a one-night staycation at Spencer Beach Park on Hawai’i Island. How can I suggest if I am not going myself? I tried the methodology and she worked exceedingly well, so highly recommend. Wait, what? You have been reading the blog, right? What in sweet goddess of all irritations have you been up to if not perusing each essay? Alas, a writer writes and a reader reads any ‘ol damn time she wishes.