College: The Hardest Learning Experience You'll Ever Love Like Crazy
Jul 28 '01 (Updated Jul 29 '01)
The Bottom Line College is tough, but if you look at it the right way, it is just plain interesting too. It all depends on your attitude.
College is not the same as high school. I'm sure by now those of you who may be prospective college students now in high school have heard that a couple of zillion times over.
The thing of it is, first of all, you have to want to go to college. A lot of kids come out of high school and they feel so confused and dazed by high school (often a meatgrinder experience for students and teachers alike) they really ought to work a year or so before moving on to college, no matter what conformity in the culture says.
But if you are ready to move ahead, be prepared for this:
Normally, the classes will be a whole lot more interesting than they were in high school, and normally, you will be EXPECTED to work much harder than you did in high school in your classes. The carrot and the stick.
Why is this so? Well, for starters, the average class in a college setting is taught by a more-highly-trained-than-a-high-school teacher teaching a more-in-depth-than-high-school course, and who assumes that you are a more-highly-motivated-as-a-student-than-the-average-high-school student. What that does is to raise the enthusiasm level of both the professor and the students in the class so that the heightened enthusiasm and the deeper learning experience make everything much more interesting.
Now this is all a big generalization, of course. Don't forget I said that. In a given specific college classroom situation several factors can blow my theory to smithereens.
For example, if your college Freshman English class has 750 students in it and you are more a number than a person and have to use binoculars to see the face of the professor way up there a mile away in front of the class, your enthusiasm level for the class may drop to zero and you may drop out. But generally speaking, the average college class is far more interesting than the average high school class; it's like the difference between cafeteria food and a good steakhouse's food. Cafeteria food may be "okay", but steakhouse fare may be "great." It's not the chefs' (teachers') fault; it's what you are given to work with.
But here's the kicker: whereas in high school a lot of students can take a course and slide by getting a passing grade on minimal work and good looks and charm, in college good looks and charm count very little (unless you are a real babe or a studmuffin, in which case hormones may override the theory), and serious hard work counts for a lot. A lot of A-level high school kids have flunked out of college because they never caught this fact.
Now here is the secret that many college and university educators don't like to admit: Junior Colleges (Two-year Freshman-and-Sophomore colleges) are generally in a moderating position between the workload expectations of high school and a four-year college or university.
Again, dear hearts, this is a GENERALIZATION and is not the universal case. But generally speaking, if you come out of high school and go to a junior college, it's a little easier than the big-school route. It's like mountain climbing: instead of jumping in and tackling Mount Everest at the start you get to climb the foothills first rather than going DIRECTLY for the summit. That may be a biggie; as a matter of fact many folks have found it the difference between absolute collegiate success and absolute collegiate failure.
Personally, I LOVED college. I was so bored in high school by the time my senior year rolled around I was ready to scream. But I graduated from high school and the next fall enrolled in a junior college and was immediately impressed by how interesting most of the classes were compared to high school, and how nice it was to have professors who took me seriously rather than treat me as a "high school Harry."
Even so, in my Freshman year at junior college, I ran into courses so hard I had to drop them and change my plans for a career accordingly. I'm smarter than the average rhesus monkey, but with my right-brained characteristics when I took a course in accounting I got bogged down pronto and turned in my drop slip in a hurry. (Years later I learned how accounting works, but that was when I was dealing with real dollars rather than "stated-problem" dollars.)
It is no sin to drop a college course. It just means you cut your losses before you got bombed by an "F". Sometimes you need to cut your losses and jump to a working situation---that's a smart move not a dumb move.
On the other side of the ledger, I aced my Freshman and Sophomore English literature courses because I found that my love of novels, movies, and plays meant I had a strong interest in that area.
But after junior college, I had a BIG problem. I had been preparing to be this great corporate lawyer, you see, because I thought it would be really cool and really lucrative to be a big corporate lawyer and wear pin-striped gray suits and eat two-hour power lunches in high-rise buildings at restaurants named Vincincio's and stupid stuff like that.
But all the while I was refusing to admit (TO MYSELF, mainly) that while other people were destined to be big corporate lawyers and do quite well at it, I would have hated it. I'd probably have wound up jumping out the window of the high-rise, as a matter of fact.
So at the end of my sophomore year I was utterly miserable and did not know why. It was because I was not being honest with myself. I was not really interested in or enthusiastic about being a lawyer. I wanted to do something else but since I had been aiming myself at law for 5 years I smashed into a wall against myself. I felt trapped.
Trapped, and full of guilt and shame, I decided to change courses. As a matter if fact, I decided to drop out of school entirely (YIIII!!!!!) for at least a semester until I could figure out what in the world to set my career goals for and what my course plan should therefore be.
Here is another benchmark lesson: DON'T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE YOUR WHOLE DEGREE PLAN OR EVEN DROP OUT OF SCHOOL FOR A WHILE. Tell your parents to chill if you have to do this---they will eventually understand (Most of them will, anyway).
No law says you will go to jail if you change your career plans or drop out of school long enough to get your head on straight. More people have done this than you would imagine. I know there is pressure to conform, to proceed at all costs, but tell the pressure to take a flying leap off the cliffs of insanity. This is your life and your career we are talking about, right? Take enough time to do it all right NOW without getting pressured into something you'll hate as bad as a bad marriage where you are trapped.
At that point it finally dawned on me: Hey, I love to (a) write, (b) read novels and short stories and poetry, and (c)collect works of fiction. Ergo, what would I LOVE to do? Teach English and write? Well, duh!
So I reset my degree plan in that direction and finished college with the highest grades I'd ever earned. That set me up for graduate school and eventually successfully earning a doctoral degree.
What was the lesson? Choose what you LOVE to be the thing that guides your college degree plan and when you are taking COURSES you LOVE you will become enthusiastic and will make high grades. The enthusiasm will be the wind in your sails that will carry you across your ocean.
I did eventually do ok with my B.A. in English; I wrote and published articles and a novel, but I never became an English teacher; that's another story.
The point is: find what you LOVE to do and follow that course. FOLLOW YOUR HEART. Don't follow a "money" route or what your "friends or family" tell you to do because it's what THEY want. It has to be what YOU want.
Now my one small stuffy caveat here is this: in following what your heart wants also use your head. Choose something where you can make a decent financial cash flow come in on a regular basis and if you have an artistic streak let that be an after-hours thing until it takes over and you are the next Great Artiste, etc.
Now. Do you want another Irony? Remember I told you I chose English as a degree target because I loved that? Well, that was what I did back in my 20s because that was what I loved back in my 20s. Even though I have a successful career at what I do today, in my 50s, now, if I went back to school I would now take business courses because I have come to love certain aspects of business. It all depends on what you love at what time in life.
Here's another rule: College dropouts are OK.
It's not shameful to drop out entirely and you don't have to wear the scarlet letters "D.O." on your shirt or dress all the time. A lot of people dropped out of college and did not go to jail, were not disowned by their parents, were not sent to Siberia to survive on a diet of fishheads for the rest of their lives, and actually made financially successful careers in their lives in spite of it all.
Personally, I think a person should go back and complete some kind of a college education if at all possible, but so what? My father dropped out of college and did great career-wise and eventually financially and so have a zillion other people.
So don't fall for the lie that you are "second-class" if you drop out. On the other hand, if you are only a year or so away from completing a college degree, hey, why not go back and pick it up. At your next job interview your interviewer will give you the edge over anyone without a degree and you will stand a better chance of getting a job you like and making more money. On your next date you'll feel a little more secure telling your friend you were a graduate. You'll also make mom and dad happy, too, if that means anything worthwhile to you.
Expect college to make you work and study hard- harder than you ever have before. A serious college experience means serious hard work---maybe even the hardest you will ever do.
But expect college to reward you by giving you interesting subjects to learn, interesting people to learn with, and eventually, a more rewarding career than flipping burgers at the local fast-food place (not that we don't need good people there too, of course---my youngest son--18-- is currently doing just that, and is GOOD at it too!)
When it's over you'll be proud. You won't look back and sigh and say "Ugh!...four years of my life...wasted." You'll say, "I'm glad I toughed it out...the tassle was worth the hassle."
*****
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Ed.Williamson
|
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
Reviews written: 607
Trusted by: 315 members
About Me:
Fight 'em till Hell freezes over, then fight 'em on the ice!
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.