The years of college may be compared to a motor trip across a large continent.  While "riding" the student gets a sample of the land's extremes in temperature and elevation, the differences in its soil and vegetation; and with each mile traveled he gets an idea of its immensity; but he doesn't see and feel everything.

But even if he misses many of the details along the highway itself, hemay consider the journey a success if he has obtained an idea of the continent's worth-while features, if he knows what areas he would like to explore later, a nd perhaps the particular place where he would like to make his home.  It is not a success if he thinks, when the trip is over, that he knows the country; or if he takes a side road and spends so much time exploring that he can't finish the big trip.  Nor is it a success if he drives so fast that he meets no people, sees nothing but gray pavement and the cars he passes, and gets an over-simple picture of what the country is like. 

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 6)