HealthCare

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Is College Worth It? The Story Part One

Posted on 7:15 AM by Unknown
I get inspired to dive into a topic by other people. I messing around a few education blogs and I gotta tell you, a few of academicians where having fits about this young man's rant/declaration.

His name is Dan Brown and in February of 2010 he let it rip:



I actually said these words to one of my college professors many years ago. I have mixed feelings about it now. I can see both sides. I lived both sides.

My mother wanted me to get a job. I am fairly certain of this because when she got pissed off at me or my siblings she reminded us that when we were old enough we were to get a job and then get the hell out.

Other relatives also reinforced the message that I should work hard, graduate and then get a job to help out my mother. It was what they believed to be true. I knew that my mother felt that 12 years of schooling was more than enough. It would have been tolerable if I had decided to go to a trade school; which in those days it would have required attendance at night school to learn how to be a secretary.

I wanted to go to college. I wanted an education.

Maybe my mother felt that it was a waste of time. Perhaps she was protecting me in not allowing me to dream past the practical. Perhaps my mother was protecting me from what she believed to be institutional blocks of class and race.

I don’t know. We never talked about it. My mother did not stop me from attending college. She also did not support or encourage my efforts. I was on my own in figuring out how to get into college and how to finance my education.

You see, I was paying attention to what my mother and relatives communicated. I saw how hard it was for her to raise a family on almost minimum wages. Being exhausted and underpaid does not inspire maternal June Clever warm and fuzzy behavior. It was hard. Some days it was too much to bear without anger or tears.

I worked part-time as a teen. I knew crappy jobs. I specialized in crappy jobs like the restaurant owner who did not believe in hot water. Part of my day was spent washing dishes in that joint. In winter.

I didn’t last long.

There were other jobs that cringe in memory. The people with “good jobs” who were miserable, cranky and about to go psycho at the least variation of their carefully constructed empire of cubicle power dictates.

Yet the mantra was graduate high school, get a good job.

I did not have illusions about going off to an educational Disneyland. I wanted to go someplace where people wanted to talk and think about the big questions.

I listened to the voice within. I went off to college. I struggled through disappointment. It seemed like a sped up version of high school. Teachers talking and I was stuck listening: some times to a fool. Occasionally there would be inspired exchanges but routinely I was bored.

It did not matter that I worked as I attended college. The rank troopers like Pepper and Skippy did teach me that there was an educational inequality in our respective public school education.

They taught me that the meritocracy they spoke of wrapped around their necks like a shield might have been their parents’ money and not necessarily any effort they specifically had put forth toward their education.

I did much better with the campus activities and groups. The school radio station, a community silk screen art center, or volunteering. My grade were ok. I just wasn’t good at being a student drone.

The days leading to my dropping out were filled with a counselor trying to tell me discretely tell me that not everybody is cut out for college, perhaps a trade school would be better. A instructor, who did not want female students in his class, did his best to purged out as many as he could.

I took longer than most of my class but I dropped out of formal education and created my own. I eventually found the right schools that actually meant what they said about education and dropped back into the fold, on my terms.

BlogHer Recycling and Other Resources


This post appeared in its entirety in a slightly different form on BlogHer as The Price May Not Be Right - Is College Worth It? I am a Contributing Editor at BlogHer.

Basically, I'm recycling some of my prior content and finding new stuff.

  • Fellow CE Leslie Madson Brooks wrote an open letter to parents and future students that ask everyone involved to truly understand the reason for attending college.
  • NPR’s radio program The Take A Way interviews Anya Kamenetz author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education
  • For a faith based perspective on the road to college there is Mommy Life’s post is college for everyone?
  • Barbara at Roaming Writers asks Is College Necessary?
  • Karen Burns at Working Girl write a post on Is College Worth It?
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in buying, choice, education, frustrations, survival | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Learning 2.0 Applied by Real Teachers Who Blog
    There are time when I have my head in my hands waiting for the Muse on Duty to show up and give me a hint. I search but nothing is sticking....
  • Ethical Castaways – A Blog Noir Tale of Content, Respect and Responsibility
    It was a dark and stormy night at the Castaway Bar and Grill. Mookie the bartender was polishing the beer into the counter top as he bounced...
  • The Confederate Flag – The Push Me Pull You of Culture and Race
    Tenured Radical had a post on the 2009 conservative march in Washington . If you follow the link you will see two men holding a flag. I also...
  • Antarctica – Posts from Way Down Under
    It is the Austral Summer. It is travel season for those making their ways to Antarctic research stations. There are a number of scientists,...
  • Not Saponaceous Just the Facts
    So, I have been meaning to write lubrication posts for months. First, I was going to test them out. It would have been a one sided test but ...
  • Two Thoughts and Then I'm Outside for the Day
    Got an e-mail from Barnes and Noble about buying Borders customer data. Thing is, I opted out of Borders e-mail long before the bankruptcy...
  • Seeking Biblical Scholarship over Biblical Hubris
    On Halloween, 2009 Pastor Grizzard of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina planed to burn versions of the bible, music an...
  • The Things I'd Want Other Women to Know
    Last week I saw the movie Deep Impact at the hotel at BlogHer 10. I couldn't sleep. Jet lag I think. Anyway, the impending comet of doom...
  • Clean Coal Research Using Information Literacy Skills
    One of my first memories of being in downtown Los Angeles was the sensation of feeling acid rain in my eyes. It stung. I did not know what i...
  • Rory Sutherland at TED - Sweat The Small Stuff
    I was explaining to a friend about the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences , the main one and the spin-offs. This is a ta...

Categories

  • aging (40)
  • animation (2)
  • art (21)
  • artists (24)
  • aware (21)
  • BlogHer (7)
  • BlogHer09 (7)
  • books (14)
  • buying (5)
  • camcorders (3)
  • changes (27)
  • choice (12)
  • citizenship (23)
  • comedy (7)
  • comics (2)
  • community (100)
  • computers (9)
  • copyright (1)
  • creativity (102)
  • culture (91)
  • dancing (30)
  • death (9)
  • domestic violence (3)
  • Doo Dah (1)
  • education (44)
  • edupunk (2)
  • election (2)
  • environment (13)
  • ethics (3)
  • faith (19)
  • financial (7)
  • food (26)
  • free events (12)
  • freedom (29)
  • frustrations (60)
  • FTS (3)
  • fuel (1)
  • funk (7)
  • gadgets (12)
  • games (1)
  • green (5)
  • health (40)
  • history (42)
  • humor (17)
  • information (35)
  • inventors (3)
  • journalism (7)
  • language (14)
  • Linux (1)
  • literacy (15)
  • los angeles (6)
  • marriage (2)
  • mass transit (3)
  • math (2)
  • media (11)
  • memories (36)
  • Metro (3)
  • midlife (38)
  • movies (14)
  • music (97)
  • music. (6)
  • networking (4)
  • old tech (3)
  • parents (1)
  • parody (5)
  • Pasadena (9)
  • pcampLA (5)
  • peace (10)
  • performance (25)
  • persuasion (5)
  • persuation (19)
  • photography (3)
  • poetry (57)
  • politics (32)
  • presentation (9)
  • protest (8)
  • PSA (12)
  • ramble (24)
  • reading (6)
  • religion (3)
  • resources (12)
  • responsibility (17)
  • sales (2)
  • science (8)
  • sex (37)
  • spirituality (12)
  • staycation (17)
  • storytelling (27)
  • survival (26)
  • swing (1)
  • technology (26)
  • television (8)
  • thinking (30)
  • trains (1)
  • transportation (2)
  • tutorials (8)
  • veggie (1)
  • video (17)
  • videoblogging (68)
  • videobloggingweek2009 (1)
  • violence (6)
  • viral (8)
  • VloMo (36)
  • voting (3)
  • war (3)
  • water (1)
  • women (76)
  • writing (35)

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (32)
    • ►  September (2)
    • ►  August (4)
    • ►  July (5)
    • ►  June (2)
    • ►  May (2)
    • ►  April (3)
    • ►  March (5)
    • ►  February (6)
    • ►  January (3)
  • ►  2012 (64)
    • ►  December (3)
    • ►  November (6)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (4)
    • ►  August (9)
    • ►  July (8)
    • ►  June (7)
    • ►  May (7)
    • ►  April (3)
    • ►  March (3)
    • ►  February (4)
    • ►  January (4)
  • ►  2011 (112)
    • ►  December (7)
    • ►  November (10)
    • ►  October (7)
    • ►  September (5)
    • ►  August (7)
    • ►  July (8)
    • ►  June (11)
    • ►  May (9)
    • ►  April (11)
    • ►  March (18)
    • ►  February (9)
    • ►  January (10)
  • ▼  2010 (176)
    • ►  December (10)
    • ►  November (30)
    • ►  October (15)
    • ►  September (13)
    • ►  August (12)
    • ▼  July (14)
      • Poetry In Plain Sight - Don Kingfisher Campbell
      • Ring My Bell on the Finally Friday Freakout
      • Poetry In Plain Sight - Raindog
      • Poetry In Plain Sight - Armando Flores Jr.
      • Poetry In Plain Sight - CaLokie
      • Saturday Stuff To Do
      • Don't Play That Song on the Finally Friday Freakout
      • A Book I Haven't Read or I'm Slipping
      • Send Him Up Proper - Mr. Walter Hawkins
      • Cherish The Day on the Finally Friday Freakout
      • Is College Worth It? The Story Part Two
      • Is College Worth It? The Story Part One
      • Rory Sutherland at TED - Sweat The Small Stuff
      • Shout on the Finall Friday Freakout
    • ►  June (11)
    • ►  May (17)
    • ►  April (14)
    • ►  March (15)
    • ►  February (15)
    • ►  January (10)
  • ►  2009 (116)
    • ►  December (11)
    • ►  November (15)
    • ►  October (14)
    • ►  September (15)
    • ►  August (13)
    • ►  July (21)
    • ►  June (15)
    • ►  May (12)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile