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In today's post I offer a bit of advice to young college students heading off to school, and to whichever parents or guardians or loved ones are watching and worrying (and taking out loans).
Dear incoming college student and parent(s),
I'm addressing this letter to both of you, because college is much more of a partnership than many families realize going in. There's going to be drama, unexpected drama, good and bad, even from the most even-tempered and high-achieving students, and I just want to give you both a head's up.
Let me give you an example, drawn from life (OK, my life). When I went off to college in 19mumbletymumblety, I wanted to go someplace different than everyone else in my family had gone--meaning not the local state university. I wasn't necessarily aiming for Harvard or Yale (I was in a gifted magnet program in high school, and my fellow students were headed to the Ivies, so I already had been through enough competition, thankyouverymuch), but after attending a very large (4,000-student) high school in urban Long Beach, California, I wanted to go somewhere that was (a) smaller than my high school, (b) had green rolling hills, and (c) boasted a community of learners pursuing old-fashioned liberal arts degrees.
To make a long story short: Ends up at age 18, even with all my smarts, I couldn't pick a college that matched my needs. I attended three colleges (one small public college, one large urban community college, and one small liberal arts college) in three states (Virginia, California, and Iowa) in three semesters. And the only reason I didn't flee from the last one--which, thank goodness, I grew to love--was that my parents told me if I left it, I would be attending the local state university. I graduated from that third college.
But between moving in to my first crappy dorm room and listening to David McCullough give a lovely commencement address outdoors on a windy Iowa day, under flowering crab apple trees, with all of us so happy and sad at once, there was quite a bit of drama. Nothing like some students go through--losing parents or siblings, getting pregnant or gravely ill far from home, engagements and breakups and recriminations. But it was enough drama for me to wonder what the hell I was doing in college in the first place.
It was scary to ask myself--a very high-achieving student throughout high school--that question: what was the point of college? I remember calling my parents from Iowa and, after chatting about the difference in temperature--it was 130 degrees warmer in Long Beach than central Iowa, if you took windchill into account--expressing the feeling that I was just a little dog jumping through the hoops set up by my professors. "Sometimes," I said, "the hoops are small and high. Other times they're big and low and easy to pass through. But sometimes they're on fire. But they're still just hoops, just stupid hoops."
And I wasn't even attending a college with general education requirements. My college also made a big deal about how important it was to connect one's education to the world through service. So it wasn't as if my education hadn't been contextualized for me.
There was something, however, about the rhythm of the semester that drove me crazy. As soon as I finished one, another would start, with the same kind of challenges in the same classrooms. Some semesters I read a book per week per class (with 4 classes at a time), so I had plenty to occupy my time, but I still found the head space to consider why I was doing it.
It would have been SO much easier if I had begun really thinking about that question before I began my studies. The usual answers, you see, weren't sufficient for me. Some typical rationalizations for going to college follow; see if any apply to you:
- because it's the next step for smart people like me.
- because everyone in my family has gone to college.
- because no one in my family has gone to college.
- because a college degree will help me get a job.
- because I need this B.A./B.S. to go to graduate or professional school.
- because I'm not ready to be all grown up and get a job.
- because I need to move out of my parents' house, and this way they'll pay for it.
- because
