Last Sunday evening I was in downtown Cincinnati to check out Findlay Market, a well-renown grocery store located in the heart of Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati.  As I was walking up to the entrance, I saw a cracked out black man talking gibberish to himself.  He was clearly messed up – very raggedy clothing, missing all of his teeth except for 2, basically your typical Over-the-Rhine junkie.  As I approached him, me and the friends I was with kept walking to avoid him, and just get to the stores entrance.  As we passed him, he asked us if we were College students.  We said yes and kept walking towards the entrance. 
 
He then asked us if we knew what the word ‘anomaly’ meant.  I thought for a moment.  I knew I had heard the word before but couldn’t come up with an immediate answer.  We kept walking and the guy started cracking up and asked us “so why are you even in College?”  For the rest of the time in the market, it was really pissing me off that I got challenged by a cracked out bum and didn’t know the answer to a word I knew I had heard before.  When I got home, I immediately googled the definition and found that an anomaly is an inconsistency, a contradiction, or a peculiarity.  I started laughing to myself, I understood what the crazy man was saying.  It is a contradiction to be in college, a place typically classified as a place of learning, and not know what an anomaly is.  It got me really thinking why am I even in College?  Is it really going to help me in the future or am I just going through the motions because this is what everyone else typically does.
 
I then started applying it to my new recent experience in the “real-life” work force.  I still haven’t figured out fully what I think of my CO-OP yet.  What I have noticed is that I could do a lot of this without College experience.  I’ve always held the view that College is more of a place to develop social skills and networking rather than learning core concepts that transition to the typical work environment.  Honestly, the only importance I see out of College is meeting as many people as possible and getting a degree so future clients view you as trustworthy and intelligent.  I’ve been doing a lot of re-evaluation of what I am doing and soul searching to figure out what it is exactly I want to do in life.  One things for certain, I will never forget the definition of ‘anomaly.’