Why I drop $60k on a liberal arts education (or at least let the government do it….) (27 Jan 2015)

I feel like school is all I know.

During my senior year of high school, like many other students my age, I started submitting college applications. In retrospect, though, I didn’t stay up writing essays and bugging my parents for financial information because I wanted to go to college. I did it because I thought I had to. I had spent the last twelve years spending eight hours a day behind a desk. It was all I knew.

It had been no secret that I was “smart” (in academic terms). My father noticed this when I was young, and joked that I he wouldn’t be surprised if I went to Stanford when I was older. This was all I had heard about “college”–this “Stanford” place. So I took it seriously. My goal from that point was to get into Stanford. For what? I didn’t know. At that point, I still wanted to be a princess when I grew up, and I’m not sure that’s included in any university’s course catalog.

Ten years later, I received an e-mail from Stanford University informing me that I had not been accepted. I was at work at the time, and I asked my boss to let me sit in my car for a few minutes. I cried (I promise this won’t be a recurring theme in my blog). But honestly, I don’t know why. Sure, it would have been nice to be able to tell people I went to Stanford, but that was it. That was the appeal. I wanted the prestigious name. Sure, the academics are great, but I didn’t actually care. I had submitted many applications for reasons that had nothing to do with academics–maybe the campus was pretty, maybe they had an esteemed football team that I wanted to root for (go Ducks!). In fact, when applying to colleges, academics didn’t really matter to me at all. As long as I was at a university, it counted, right?

My biggest revelation came when I committed to attend Furman University. When I told my dad the news, he told me that he was proud of me and said that I would be the first one in the family to go to a four-year university. My jaw dropped. It was an option not to go to one?! This had never occurred to me. I had been so caught up in the social norm: when you get out of high school, you go to college. If you go to community college, it’s a cute effort. If you don’t go to college at all, you’re going to spend your time working at McDonald’s. And I sure as hell didn’t want to do that.

Essentially, I’m in school because society makes me feel like I should. I felt forced to decide what I want to do with my life early on. Fresh out of high school, I thought I had to have it all figured out. I declared my major during my first semester of college because I felt like I had to. I wanted to have a plan. I wanted to be able to answer questions at Thanksgiving–”How’s school?”, “What are you studying?”, “What do you plan on doing with that?” I just can’t bear to turn to my grandmother and utter the words “I don’t know,” when in reality, maybe I don’t know. Maybe my plan is wrong. Maybe it isn’t for me. And even though I can’t fully admit it yet, maybe it’s okay if I don’t know.

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Comments from old blog:

Dr. Herron: I still remember the pile of small envelopes form big name schools on the table waiting for me when we got home from a family vacation. Not a pleasant experience!

Of course, they are judging on much more than academics. And as you mention, focusing on academics with a purpose in mind is an essential part of making the experience worthwhile. I would just say, challenge yourself! Make yourself work hard and learn a lot. Any college education that does that will be extremely valuable.