THE COLLEGE THAT IS, AND THE COLLEGE THAT COULD BE

This last quarter, I took a watercolor class – a class I expected to be an easy “A” with little consideration to my visually artistic skills. 

As the Fall Term progressed, I continuously felt disappointed with each assignment. Abstract piece after abstract piece, then on to pieces I wasn’t interested in painting, then into studies on items I felt no connection to – it all just felt like work. 

Ironic, isn’t it? How art, a leisurely activity, turned into a subject I felt like doing only because I had to, for a letter that could determine whether or not I deserved to learn more. All this money spent on an education that’s required for me to get anywhere in the world that I’d like to be, and yet I keep coming back to the struggles that so many people have with it. 

 American education, as a whole, is low ranking  in terms of scoring and overall intelligence according to Pew Research Center, and with the way it’s going I don’t see it rising to any higher placement. It’s not even about finding passion, or getting to know yourself in a way that allows you to find a vocation that you could work in for the rest of your life. Again and again, I hear this sentiment that college is there to just throw as much work as possible in your face and see if you can adjust to it – see if you could adjust to living a life that expects to treat you this way, too. 

 If you are one of the few that can’t make it, that can’t take this unending wave of stress and complexity, it feels as though you’re guaranteed to be looked at as “lesser.” 

Sure, you can get a blue- collar job learning a trade and feeling your bones age faster than a politician, but the point is that for those that aren’t able-bodied or able-minded, college is meant to be more of a challenge than it could ever be to those who are. Instead of building a place designed to educate, college leaders have built a place designed to test and work. 

It’s always said, “If you get a job you like, you’ll never work a day in your life,” but for those like me who feel like a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, we’re feeling overwhelmed with possibilities. I don’t want to live a life where I’m known for just one job, and even if I was, I feel like money is a huge concern for the times coming soon which will eliminate even more of my passion. Regardless of whether or not I enjoy my career, money is the reason we all do these things, and I personally don’t want to live my life for money – but really have no choice. 

As I see it, the problem with college assignments is that students half-ass everything because none of us have the time for dedicating our full energy to one project. I feel as though I personally wish I could dedicate as much time and energy as possible into a project, but don’t have either of those handy. It’s like the teachers assign you work as if you take only this one class, and for many of them that is the overall approach. While I can negotiate every little assignment to fit my needs to create a schedule that works for me, not only do I not have that option in every class, but also I don’t have the time to negotiate – so that just leaves me stressed and continuously working.  

We treat this all as if it were normal, but wouldn’t you want to have a college education that wasn’t there to hold you hostage to a grade? Wouldn’t you like to spend your twenties actually living, instead of working? What if there was a way to value education not off of testing and grading, but rather the lessons we learn: Wouldn’t that be more beneficial to students? I know that this is entirely hypothetical currently, but I think in the minds of every student lies a desire for change from the old ways of teaching that centers more around actual education rather than a letter grade.  

In this same watercolor class, I was having an awful day where I was dealing with some intense upper back pain that has been plaguing me for months. So I asked if there was a nurse on the MHCC campus I could go to, and instead the only thing that was offered were the campus security guards who proceeded to interrogate me over fears of me having COVID. After this conversation, I proceeded to get text messages from these guards after class, along with them attempting to call me, trying to offer me alternatives to what would’ve actually helped – a school nurse. 

 Situations like this make me so tired of attending a school that’s willing to put more money into sports or security than actual helpful tools that the students would desire – and yet all we get are surveys that only might improve the lives of students, on- and off- campus. 

In the life we students live, a great majority of us don’t get to choose what we would like to happen, and rather feel the effects of every painful decision made, from the U.S. presidents to the mayors to our teachers. We sit and wallow in them. 

When will we all get to choose our lives?