I have approximately nine months left of my college education.
This revelation, far from bringing excitement to my fellow seniors, seems to
be paralysis-inducing. For many seniors I know, the g-word generates almost as
much consternation as an f-bomb at afternoon tea.
I'll admit, looking into a future full of nebulous possibilities is a little
weird. However, I'm very much looking forward to graduating.
Consider this: another meaning of the word “graduate” is to change slowly,
or even to mark by steps. Change happens. People take classes and then work and
get married (or not) and will change, even if they don’t want to, even if they
try their best not to.
Some people, looking at those changes, are afraid that all that’s come
before will simply be the accumulation of failure. After four years of college,
they’ll be stuck with debt and a job search, wondering if it was worth it.
I believe it is.
I don't think that four years of thinking, writing, trying and failing,
managing my own money and time, and working harder than I ever have could be
wasteful. Graduating will be one step in my graduation. Since I’m always
changing, what’s one more change?
It's almost like a divine metaphor.
And remember, new territory isn’t anything to be afraid of.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and
courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
As a student at a private Christian liberal arts college, I have worries about my future. Not because I don't think I'm getting a quality education or that my experiences haven't been good for me, but because debt is scary. On top of that, I want to make a living writing stuff. What kind of plan is that?
This is one reason I'm a professional writing major. The idea is to learn the skills and business techniques necessary to work in a variety of writing careers. I haven't regretted this decision, but before I knew pro writing existed as a major, I considered other options.
I looked down the path of getting an English major as far as I could and took another road. I doubted if I should ever look back. I couldn't how imagine doing something I admittedly enjoyed -- reading cool stuff for four years -- would prepare me to get a job.
Now I think that may not be the point.
College nowadays has basically turned into career training, or even pre-training. There's some merit to this, but that has more to do with our society today than with education. I firmly believe that learning literature, philosophy, mathematics and science make you better because of what they do to your mind. This should help you in your career the same way it helps you in your life (says the 20-year-old undergrad). English majors, who study all kinds of writing from all periods of history and genres, are immersed in this on a level unequaled since when that was what education was. It's whole-person education to the core, since looking at what writers have been writing about through the ages is about as close to majoring in the universe as you can get, in my opinion.
Getting a job is a whole 'nother story. I admit, nowadays a paying job is kind of essential, at least for the kinds of people who go to college because we've been told it's what we need to do to get a job. In my ideal college situation, this whole education (which is basically what university means, by the way) would occur mixed in with all the important career training. Getting a degree, however, doesn't necessarily mean that's happened. (Read this interesting blog post from Art of Manliness and its accompanying comments for more on that head.) I also think there are a lot of people who aren't as good at teaching
themselves how to do things as teachers are (definitely true for me),
which is one reason the experience is important.
Of course, you should still consider whether the experience is worth it for the price. Consider the first two minutes of this video.
So, if college isn't the be-all, end-all solution for finding a job, why would someone even consider an English major, which (after underwater basketweaving) is becoming the poster major for pointlessness? In the words of the immortal Lizzie Bennet, "There are lots of business majors who can't get jobs right now.
There are no guaranteed careers for our generation, and since
everything's a risk, might as well take a risk on something you love."
So go study physics or microbiology or social work or writing or English -- not because it will get you a job, but because education is important.
Today was strike for the last show of the year. Strike is where we tear down the set, put everything away, and clean up the theater so we can make another mess on a clean slate next production. We had some major clearing out to do up in the props loft, and it'll be an ongoing process.
Yesterday I talked to my boyfriend on the phone for two hours. We don't get to talk very much. He is the one I bounce ideas off of, the person I turn to when I need to understand what I'm feeling and thinking. After that conversation, I felt like I had more space in my head, as if all the abstractions had formed words and had been written down, put into place. I felt rooted and ready for more things to come.
Earlier today, as I was hauling rolls of carpet around and watching our technical director pull old things to throw away, I pictured how I would use the extra space. There's still so much to do. We have props from productions going back 20 years and more, things I can't imagine how they were used. Still, they are there. Some of them with potential. Some of them just taking up space. We have to decide which is which so we can continue to become a more efficient theater -- we're far from perfect.
I'm not an organizer. I'm a worker. I don't outline my papers, and when I make plans to work on something, I often end up working on something else instead. I just start. I hold all my ideas in my head, and sometimes that is helpful and other times, distracting. I have to figure out which is which so that I can do all that I expect myself to do -- and there's so much more I could do.
I am at a stage where I need to clear things out to be ready for what comes next. I have to get ready to leave for the summer. I have to finish projects. I have to work, I have to rest, I have to pray. And, because I'm obstinate and say I'm not an organizer, I will just let all these things stew in my mind. They will get done one at a time, much as I wish I could just finish it all at once. I want everything to be put in order. First step, pouring out the ideas, done. Next, time to decide what to do with them.
One of the things I love most is learning. Love of learning is why, largely, I decided to go to a private liberal arts college when I don't need a degree for what I want to do. Write novels? You really need to go to school for that?
No... and yes. Writers need to learn things. And writers need to be able to apply what they learn.
I've been surprised at what I've discovered, and lots of those discoveries happen outside of a classroom. Some of them are little things, skills or facts that have surprised me:
The most efficient path between buildings when in a hurry.
How to store things in my memory short-term just for quizzes and tests. (This disturbs me. I never used to have to do this.)
How to eat a full meal in three minutes.
How to make macaroni and cheese anytime in the dining commons. (Stop waiting in line for it, people. The ingredients are at your fingertips.)
How to make conversation with random strangers.
Pocketknives actually are very useful. (I'll admit, I had one originally because I thought it was cool.)
If, as a writer, you go anywhere without a pen, you will regret it.
Some of them are bigger, more along the lines of guiding principles. Some of them should be obvious, but typically, they've been no less surprising:
There are a whole lot of people smarter than you.
Ask questions. It's how you keep up when things are difficult, and people will surprise you with how kind they are.
Any plans you make to better your schedule will be waylaid by something else.
There is no end to opportunity. The hardest part is taking hold of it.
Don't take it for granted that things will fall together.
Sometimes, you have to relax intentionally.
Little sleep isn't the end of the world.
Everything feels better when your room is clean.
People are both more wonderful and less perfect than you think.
Learning is the easy thing, especially where I am. The hard part is learning to apply what you've learned.
This is a post I meant to write a long time ago, right when first semester classes let out. Now I'm back at Taylor and very excited about it. Before I start my first full week of class (I had class today, but hey, it's a Tuesday) I want to put up a list of the most interesting things I learned last semester, in class and out. Perhaps you already knew these random facts, or maybe they don't seem so remarkable. In any case, they stuck out to me. In no particular order:
Drinking milk or eating dairy products before singing doesn't actually do anything to your voice. This should have been obvious to me because the windpipe and esophagus are two different things. I've been told the milk makes mucus, but I've never really observed that milk has any effect on my singing voice, and one of the music professors told me this. I'm going to believe her so I can have my milk and sing, too.
Having lots of time does not necessarily facilitate getting lots of things done. This is a widely-observed phenomenon among people who do NaNoWriMo.
Contrariwise, having very little time makes you an extremely productive person. (It works for me, anyway. I need to keep busy if I'm actually going to finish revising my novel!)
The Golden rectangle is everywhere, and it’s really fun to hunt for it. (Thank you, math class!)
Fibonacci in general – awesome. If you know nothing about Fibonacci numbers, I hope you cover it in class at some point or do some research on your own. Start with Vi Hart's videos, if you like.
How to use power saws. This I learned from theatre set building, and I think it will be very useful later in life. Perhaps it would be more useful to be able to handle a drill properly, but I'm still really bad at that.
Satan and Lucifer weren't originally proper nouns.They're Hebrew words to which we've attached specific people, in this case the same specific person.
How to use databases. This is an important research skill I'm still surprised I didn't learn in high school. Thank goodness for friendly librarians.
How to use Photoshop. Part of me thinks this is kind of cheating to put it on this list, but as a person who likes art, I think this is also really useful.
"Internet" is a proper noun and should be capitalized. For some reason, this really took me by surprise. Again, perhaps this should have been obvious, but I find it interesting that in our very Internet-oriented society, spelling and punctuation are dropped for lots of day-to-day communication to the point of ignoring the medium we're using. Or maybe it's more that the Internet is such a part of our lives that we take it for granted.
I want a better list next semester, so I need to kick learning into high gear. Perhaps I should start by sleeping for my first ever 8:00 a.m. college class tomorrow.
