A Guest Blog by Haylee Martin
Why do I have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to attend an institution that does not give a damn about me? Paying for classes where the teachers rarely show up, we watch movies and I don’t learn anything isn’t appealing to me. We’re told it has to be done and just to get it over with. Excuse me but I do not wish to spend my whole life paying back something I just had to “get over with.” There are a few problems with my lack of desire though.
1) It’s socially unacceptable. Somehow I feel like I wouldn’t be considered a whole person without a degree. Years of hearing about college prep and high school scaring you into going has definitely impacted me. Shouldn’t they be encouraging us to be our best and not just another successful stat. I swear school districts get paid off by colleges.
2) Letting my parents down would break my heart. I know they only want better for me than what they have. They have given me eighteen years plus of their lives and all they ask is that I get an education but I just can’t do it. I feel like a huge disappointment for not fitting into the normal child mold.
3) Everyone's expectations haunt me also. It’s not the puzzling looks or the questions that follow. It’s the free opinions I do not ask for. Oh, you went to college? Does that make you an expert on life?
I am currently a college student but not a happy one. I know what I want to do with my life but I don’t need to go to college to necessarily fulfill it. So do I go to college to fit society’s ideals of normal and educated or do I just do what I’ve always done, whatever I want?
I’m writing this because I know that I’m not the only one that feels this way. I feel like the only one but in my few life experiences I’ve discovered someone is always struggling with similar issues but no one bothers to talk about it with people outside of their “circles.”
Failure is definitely a fear but aren’t we taught to face our fears?