That was quick.

Cliché, I know. But true all the same.

It’s been about four years since I moved on campus, checked into a cozy dorm room and walked into my first class. I’ve learned a lot since.

Most of those lessons directly contradicted what I thought I knew when I came to Ohio University and I guess that’s kind of the point. In that spirit, consider this a public final exam of sorts, as I try to convey the bulk of what I’ve learned between listening to President McDavis at orientation and listening to him again at commencement last spring.

— You can live on your own for nine months a year, make your own meals and solve most of your life’s major problems, but you are not a grown-up until your parents don’t yell at you for getting a traffic ticket. I had this happen to me over the summer and it blew me away. Getting a $130 ticket and listening to my mom shrug it off was the single biggest sign that nobody was holding my hand anymore.

— Rent is obscenely high in this town. Laughably high. If you do the math as to what many landlords make from renting out what are — in many cases — substandard structures, you will want to beat yourself over the head with one of the chunks of  plaster that just fell out of your wall. It would be interesting to see what would happen if students refused to sign any leases for a whole academic year. And if you find the person who can sell that notion to thousands of dorm-plagued sophomores, let me know. I want to buy them dinner.

— ATMs can be very bad things. Always getting your money from a machine conveniently located by bars, fast food and T-shirt shops is a bad habit to start. Try to visit an actual bank teller as much as possible. Something about having money handed to me by a real person makes me feel more responsible. I always tend to take less out.

— Donating blood is more fulfilling than you’d expect. And you get a cookie.

— When you get an e-mail, you should return it promptly. E-mail has quickly risen to the top of the communication hierarchy and is intended for information less important than medical records but more vital than spring break pictures — that’s what Facebook is for now. It’s foolish to put off replying to a professor’s request for the basis of your final project, only to completely forget about it when your inbox is flooded with newsletters from various student organizations. If someone took the time to put their name at the bottom of a coherent message, just take the time to write them back.

— You should be nice to the people of this city. After working at this paper for the last few years, I’ve had a chance to meet a lot of them. And I’m glad because they’ve been pretty good to me. Students tend to view Athens as a community independent of the university, but the people of Athens will be here long after you take your diplomas and head out. The least you could do is be courteous at the grocery store.

— Don’t talk about your grades. I don’t mean to be crass, but once you hit a certain age no one sincerely cares. Unless you’re at a grad school interview, any mention of your GPA after freshman year will undoubtedly make you look conceited — rightly or wrongly. If anyone inquires into your academic standing, a simple “fine” will do.

If there is one thing I won’t miss about college it will be pretending to worry about my GPA. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I realized that most of what I was learning was a product of simply being here.

While working at The Post I’ve covered politicians and administrators who made controversial decisions. I’ve also talked to students and citizens who vehemently disagreed with them. Local business owners and college athletes filled in whatever holes were left. Somewhere in the middle I got what I consider a good idea of how the world actually works. And I have Ohio University to thank for that.

Despite the best efforts of all my professors, I’ve learned much more out of the classroom than in — by living.

I’m just thankful I got to live here.