"I'm never going to use this theory crap they're teaching us in the real world."

It is a popular statement made by college students who see the entire college experience as a useless, mandatory training session that does nothing to prepare them for the "real world."

As college students, we are conditioned to think this way. We have been spoon-fed this notion that the world we enter after graduation is much different than the one we are a part of now.

That new place is commonly referred to as the "real world."

Instead, it should be called "life outside the classroom."

The real world is a mythical land that supposedly exists beyond classroom limits. Society has defined it as the place where we finally take on the added responsibility of finding employment and learning to survive on our own.

The real world has taken on a number of negative connotations. It is a dangerous place where there are no guarantees of work, safety, security or happiness, and it is dominated by the selfish. It is a jungle where those who suffer from provincial thinki ng are eaten alive by the more socially conscious and aware.

No wonder we fear graduation, and we catch ourselves saying, "I'm not ready for the real world."

Society dictates that because we are a student in the college community, we are not a part of the overall scheme of things.

How ridiculous.

The world we have been in this year is just as real and just as demanding as the world we will enter when we graduate. In essence, college is the "real world's" preparation course for life outside the classroom, and the level of responsibility and energy needed to achieve our goals here is equal to that required to achieve them there.

There is one caveat. College life mirrors life outside the classroom only if we want it to.

Those who want it that way take advantage of the opportunities the campus affords for expanding horizons. Some get jobs on or off campus, some volunteer, and others become active in campus organizations and become student leaders.

Those who do not want it that way choose to spend all their time on academics. In this case, their college experience obviously will not reflect what life is really like outside academia.

Learning is our own choice, and we can make whatever reality we want for ourselves here.

We spend almost our entire childhood in a classroom, and when we reach the supposed pinnacle of our academic achievement at commencement, society says that we will automatically enter an entirely different world.

What we enter is a world that requires all of the training our college education provides. The well-rounded education not only expands our knowledge base, but it teaches, among other things, ethics, honesty, interpersonal skills and responsibility.

At its best, the experience leads us to open our minds to new views and ways of doing things, and it is part of the growth process where we learn to deal with the very real aspects of life that occur outside the classroom. At its worst, college remains th e isolated world of academia some say it is.

Falling prey to the notion that college is an isolated fairy tale land made from sugar coated theories is dangerous. We pulverize professors for showing us an idealized world to see how things are supposed to be. Why? Because we think theories do not ap ply to real life, but this is a misconception.

All theories apply to "real world" occurrences, for theory is defined as a way of explaining natural phenomena. Believe it or not, the theories many courses focus on come straight from reality.

Professors, however, do us a silent disservice every time they start a sentence with, "In the real world ..."

By using the words "real world," the professor reaffirms the societal norms that place us in a college isolation cell while we earn our degree.

Then we become infected with this "I'm not ready for the real world" disease. In effect, we do ourselves a disservice by saying that we are not not ready for the real world yet.

Unfortunately, we devalue what we have learned by assuming that life outside the classroom is so much different than what we have been taught.

Many say that college does not prepare us to face the challenges that await us beyond the confines of the classroom ...

The real world is filled with narrow minds.

Adam Djurdjulov is a journalism junior.