It’s the end of the semester.

Summer is so close and yet “dead” week (I use the term lightly) and finals stand in the way of a much-needed break from the sometimes mundaneness of life.

Finals, papers, and projects are important, but they aren’t the end-all be-all of success. They might help you get a degree, but they won’t necessarily help you get a life.

Ecclesiastes, one of my favorite books in the Bible, speaks of a quest for the meaning of life. The “Quester,” or narrator, thought to be one of the wisest men to ever live, goes about trying to decide what is worth doing on earth.

He indulges in just about everything and concludes that most things are as futile as chasing the wind. He repeats throughout the book that everything is meaningless. It’s an old-school book with wisdom that speaks to the modern age.

But who would ever do that? Chase the wind, that is? (Except for meteorology students, bless their hearts.)

This book was kind of depressing when I was younger, and I vowed that I would never “chase the wind,” but sometimes I’ve felt subject to that sense of futility anyway.

I don’t know about you, but over the course of four years, at times I’ve become burdened by the seeming futility of some endeavors: The repetitive nature of the university class structure, social interactions, the fact that every year a new group of students will begin anew the undergraduate experience.

This process, a knowledge factory of sorts, has been sending out supposedly educated individuals into the “real world” since the first American university was established in the 1800s. But colleges have, in the words of an esteemed columnist on this page (Max Avery), become “white-collar vo-techs” where degreed individuals go into the jobs they were trained to do.

It can all begin to seem kind of pointless, especially now as soon-to-be graduates face one of the worst economies in modern times, an Iran intent on going nuclear amongst other destabilizing global situations and, to top it all off, swine flu.

What is the point of it all?

What is the point of four, five or six years of tuition, fees and classes?

I think the point is to find a point.

What does that mean? Well for me, at the end of a four-year journey, I know college wasn’t about the classes I took or the lectures I attended.

It was about the books I read as part of a discussion group, the people I took the time to invest time in to create meaningful relationships and the activities I participated in that became important to me. None of the above were on any syllabus, but all of them added meaning to what otherwise could have been a regular undergrad experience.

To borrow the soap opera’s title, we only get one life to live. This means that we can either go with the flow as others have done before or find a way that provides meaning in our life and betters the world.

So much goes on at OU’s campus that is an invitation for students to find meaning, either by joining organizations, building new relationships or their intellects. The onus is on each person to accept that invitation and explore.

The only danger in a quest for meaning or significance is that you might have to ask yourself some hard questions and take some risks.

But the heroes of humanity, those who are in history books and hearts around the world, tell us it’s worth it.

-Kayle Barnes is a professional writing senior.