Wednesday, November 7, 2012

What'd You Ask? Why College? (Revised Edition!)


Why College, huh?  Well, to me, college equals FREEDOM. Now when I say freedom, I don’t mean the typical teenage freedom: partying, drinking, staying out all night, or doing things I wouldn’t do if I were at home. I mean freedom to be the best I can be without any circumstances holding me back, freedom to take charge of my life, freedom to seclude myself from my family’s horrible tradition of not putting their best foot forward and not setting strong examples for my generation. I know I’m throwing a lot at you and you probably feel like your missing a bit of information from my life, right? Well, let me tell you a little bit about my past:
 When I was a kid, I could never come to terms and figure out why the majority of my family was always struggling and burdened by things that I was so unaware of at the time. Every time we came together, there would always be at least one person that was under the weather or in dyer need of support, financially and emotionally. Whenever my elders would begin to talk about things that “weren’t for kids ears,” they would always shoo the kids out of the room, all of them except for me. They didn’t want us to see or hear their struggle. But me being the youngest at the time, I was considered the special one or the “favorite.” It was ok for me to be in the room because of course a little naïve kid like me wouldn’t know how to piece together what they were saying or comprehend the strong discouraging emotion that was reflecting on each and every one of their faces. Little did they know, I was very observant and had what some would call an overly active memory.
So as I grew older and began to notice more and more, things started to become clear to me. In my school system, we were introduced to the idea of college at a very early age. By the time second grade rolled around, I was convinced that college “makes people happy” and “gives people money” and “makes life easy” and will one day help me become the “doctor” or “scientist” that every little kid wanted to be. And then it hit me… “Why hadn’t the majority of my family gone to college? Why would they do such a thing? Is this why they are always so unhappy? It has to be! They didn’t go to college, so they didn’t have a good chance at becoming successful, so they don’t have that much money so life is hard for them.” I noticed that with the exception of my mom and one out of 10 of my aunts, no one in my family had achieved any form of higher education outside of high school. It all started to make sense to me. Watching some of my cousins being taken away from the family because their parents couldn't provide a suitable living place for them because of their lack of education and money, and also seeing some of the things my family members were doing to try to survive quickly made me realize that I did NOT want to follow in their footsteps and live my life like they were living theirs. I had to find a way to become more than what I was surrounded by. So, for me, college was my way out. I chose to go to college because I figured that if I kept pushing myself, and kept striving to be better than my best, then I would get to a point in life where I could live FREELY, without burden, and could eventually help my family build themselves up. I’ve always strongly believed that knowledge is power, and if I were to ever come to a point in life where I lost all my possessions, I would still have my knowledge, and with it I can create a better world for myself and even others at any time.  

 photo credit: Brett Jordan via photopin cc
photo credit: Krissy.Venosdale via photopin cc

3 comments:

  1. Good post. It's good you came to realize that you didn't want to follow your family members footsteps. Most people will just settle for a high school diploma, but you didn't you are applying yourself and looking for brighter future.

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  2. I got really happy reading your post. Everybody has something that motivates them to come to college and like you said, you chose it so you could break the cycle your family created! And I completely agree about the knowledge thing you said at the end. My dad would always say,"Get it here (points at head) 'cause once you get, they can't take it away from you."

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  3. I loved your post! The design itself is creative and funky! I agree that while in college you do get to enjoy lots of freedom. And not the kind of freedom expressed in songs like "I love college"

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