What My Best College Memory Teaches Parents About What Actually Matters In College
Last Tuesday, I was hauling boxes of old college stuff out of the attic to make room for my 18-year-old’s dorm bins when a crumpled brown paper bag fell out at my feet. The edges were frayed, and a lopsided chalk drawing of a tomato with a goofy grin was still visible on the side. I stood there in the dust for a minute, and suddenly I was back in my junior year, standing in the cracked dirt of the campus community garden, covered in sweat and convinced my entire future was ruined.
I was a bio major back then, dead set on getting into med school, with a 3.98 GPA and every extracurricular picked specifically to pad my application. I signed up for an independent study project: growing native heirloom tomatoes to test how different soil amendments affected yield. It was supposed to be the perfect addition to my application, proving I had hands-on research experience that other applicants didn’t. My plot was right next to Mrs. Henderson, a 72-year-old retired college librarian who was taking the intro garden class just for fun—no credit, no transcript, just something to fill her days after her husband died. She grew tomatoes too, but only because she liked making tomato pie for the local church bake sale.
The whole thing fell apart halfway through the semester. I had an organic chemistry midterm that I pulled three all-nighters for, and I completely forgot to water my plants for 10 days. When I finally dragged myself to the garden after the exam, four of my five test plants were wilted almost beyond saving, and the fifth was hanging on by a thread. I sat down in the dirt and actually cried, not just because of the plants. Everything felt like it was on the line: if I messed up this project, I messed up my GPA, I messed up med school, I messed up my whole life. Mrs. Henderson leaned on her hoe, didn’t tell me it was all going to be okay, just said “Pass me that trowel. We’ll prop what’s left up, and then you can come over to my place after for pie.”
I started showing up to the garden every evening after that, not just to take soil readings. We’d pull weeds, she’d tell me stories about hiding copies of Allen Ginsberg from the college administration in the 1970s, and I finally admitted out loud that I didn’t even actually want to be a doctor. I just liked biology, my dad was a doctor, and it felt like the only respectable thing a bio major could do. At the end of the semester, my project was a mess. My yield was a third of what I’d projected, my data was all over the place, and my professor gave me a B. That dropped my overall GPA to a 3.92, which I was convinced killed my med school chances. I went straight to the garden after getting my grade, and Mrs. Henderson filled that brown paper bag with 10 of her biggest tomatoes. We drew that stupid grin on the largest one, and we ate BLTs on her porch until the sun went down.
That was 22 years ago. I didn’t end up going to med school. I switched to science education a year later, became a high school biology teacher, had two kids, and here I am now, getting ready to send my oldest off to college. For the last two years, we’ve had the same conversation over and over: what classes should he take? What clubs should he join? How do we make sure his summer internship applications look good enough? When I found that paper bag last week, I realized I couldn’t tell you what grade I got on that orgo midterm, what my med school personal statement said, or even what I wore to graduation. That messy, failed tomato project is my best college memory, bar none.
A lot of parents I talk to are so focused on checking the right boxes for college that we forget to ask what our kids actually want to spend time on. It doesn’t have to be big or impressive to matter. After this memory hit me last week, I made three small, concrete shifts in how I talk to my son about college that have already made a difference. First, every time he mentions a class or activity, I start with “What part of that sounds fun to you?” instead of “Will that help your resume?” It’s a tiny swap, but it changes the whole conversation from checking boxes to talking about what he actually cares about. Second, when he comes home upset about a bad grade or a failed project, I don’t immediately ask what he’s going to do to fix it. I ask if he wants to stop for milkshakes on the way home, and if there was anything he liked about working on it anyway. Third, I made him leave four hours a week totally unstructured in his fall schedule. No classes, no work shifts, no mandatory club meetings. He can do whatever he wants with that time, no strings attached.
My son already told me he’s dropping the general chem class he signed up for just to keep pre-med as an option. He’s swapping it for a botany for beginners class that only meets once a week, with a lab where you grow your own houseplant to take home. I didn’t panic when he told me. I just asked if he wanted to stop at the nursery on the way home this weekend to pick up a few extra pots for when he brings his first plant home for Thanksgiving.
I don’t know if he’ll end up being a botanist, or a teacher, or something completely different that doesn’t even exist yet. I don’t know if that botany class will matter for his career 20 years from now, or if he’ll even remember it. I still have that crumpled paper bag in a box by the door, next to his dorm bedding. It’s not a diploma, or an award, or anything that looks good on a wall. It’s just a reminder that the things that stick with you aren’t usually the things you planned for. They’re the tomatoes, the pie, and the stupid chalk drawings. That’s enough for me, for now.
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