Why Should College be a Given?

iwishiwasacloud
Sat, 03 Aug 2019 02:19:02 +0000

Hi, my name is Blue.
I found this website just aimlessly looking for something to make me feel like my considerations about taking a gap year in between my high school career and my college career was not, as defined by my parents, “ungrateful or naive” (funny how every conversation with a parent always winds back to the child being ungrateful), but in fact, a sign of great (ish) maturity in seeking my own destiny in the real world.

Before my junior year, I never genuinely considered not going to college (junior year I was diagnosed clinically depressed and I did a lot of self-reflection about how I want to live my life, long story blah blah). It was just something that’s kind of…there. I’ve spent 17+ years of having knowledge shoved down my throat like a freaking thermometer, barely retaining half of it might I add, and I apologize if I may or may not want to redeem my grand prize that is sitting in a cold, still room with more strangers than I can count, for the next 4 years. Sue me.
Yes, I know. Of course, college/advancing education is HUGELY important to me. but what about the things that I want to do right this second. I mean I am not a 3-year-old who needs help putting a spoon into my mouth every night at the dinner table anymore. It’s time for me to venture out and discover my TRUE vocation(s) without boundaries or limits. Isn’t that what college is for? Higher education for higher jobs at higher corporations for higher incomes. blah blah blah.

I am a photographer. I mean I really like photography. But even in high school, I can’t just explore my artistic purpose and expression the way I choose. I don’t even know if photography is my calling, but it’s all I know I’m relatively both interested and good at. But no one is really giving me the time nor the space to figure that out for myself. I mean I also really think I might be interested in studying writers like Zora Neale Hurston or Alice Walker or James Baldwin in American Lit to become a writer, or sculptor or hey I really like to sing and create rhythms in the shower so maybe I’m good enough to become an artist. My point is we will never know. Not for a long time at least. There could be a million things I’m good at out there and incredibly passionate about and I simply just have to wait? Kids no longer have the time to go out and explore on their own what things matter to them and really move them. Creativity is almost now manifested solely inside the walls of a school. School kills artists (i am aware I am dramatic). And I’m sorry but I’m not willing to be another casualty.

Life is too short to live by someone else’s expectations for yourself. I’ve got bigger ones. And you should too.

please give me your insights

-Blue

And yes I know I understand the irony in my grammar and sentence structure being kind of sucky here and there and I’m talking about the benefits of the absence in college education. Yeah Yeah.