high expectations

A good education will cost you. It's important that you know the price tag. After graduation, you can compare your the cost of one year of education to your annual salary.

If you chose the right major, odds are you technically might recoup the cost of your education in two to three years' salary, that is if you don't pay living expenses. But it's not the money that will get to you. It's your quality education.

For years, you're taught to think analytically, to question, to problem solve, to create something independent and original, to lead and to build your own project. They build your social skills and your critical thinking skills, but mostly your confidence. You get used to this independence, you're encouraged to question, your original ideas are appreciated. Perhaps this is the scenario at any college, but a good college just adds insult to injury. Not just confident in your problem solving skills, you feel you've been privy to excellent opportunities, you've met powerful people and worked directly on valuable projects. Something had to be said to justify the price tag, and most "good" schools will at least leave you feeling as though you certainly got what you paid for. They'll give you some kind of pride that your ready for something as unique and excellent as your good education.

You get a job in a competetive program for a nationally known company, or somewhere highly recognized in your field. You landed the second interview, (no) thanks to the career center, and now you sit out the end of your senior year, contemplating your amazing new apartment and wardrobe for your high powered job. When your job begins you're optimistic, but two weeks in you realize you're not getting what you paid for in college. You've been put in a trainee program, along with numerous other well-credentialed (for college grads) 22 year olds. They don't work to keep you happy or to keep a high retention rate - they don't need your money, you need theirs. It's their intention that many of you won't choose to continue into the next year. Training manuals, protocalls, power point presentations, set reports, fact checking, researching. Researching for someone else's report, previously against the honor code. Gone are the encouragements of questioning, analyzing, creating. Gone is independent thought or any type of exciting quest. You realize that the work you're doing now is as challenging as what you expected out of high school. Your time of serious idealism, and oddly strong desire to independently create and complete projects is lost in memos and e-mails. Lost in the training session. Only the other skills you learned in college (not unique to "good" cooleges) offer you any sense of joy.

Your synicsm once reserved for the university dining services, the registrar, the war, or politicians is transferred to your job. The active life you lead as a student, in extra curricular and extra extra curricular activities is diminished to either late nights in the office, with your lap top, or late nights in dark places. It angers you more because you feel you know more than this, you put in your time for better than this, you thought you'd moved beyond entry level.

And so, your good education becomes your prison. And you forget how you complained about your General Eds, the miserable dorms, or the terribly hindering administration. your parent's strict rules and high school in general before that. The problem, perhaps, is not the industries, but the high expectations that come with a high priced education. and the answer ?

expect the best. make the best. never settle.

ok, so it was just getting way too long and wordy. maybe it'll be continued ... or edited....

New to the Old

I came back last Tuesday from work to the smiling face of my awesome step-mom Debbie. It seemed to be an abnormally intentional smile. She asked me if I had seen my room yet. I was worried. In the last week and a half I had completely packed up and relocated all of my useful and prized posessions of my college and so on era, my time on the East Coast. After coming back to live in my old room after over a four year absence, I was less than excited about putting my things away in drawers and hanging them next to my old prom dresses and winter coats. Then again, I'm also just pretty messy when it comes to clothes and an empty floor. I was worried she had taken the initiative to clean. My Dad put his paper down. Usually my Dad does not hear conversation directed at him when reading the paper, so noticing I was home made them even more suspect.

Slowly I opened my door, pleased to find my bed still unmade, clothes still half in and half out of my suitcase and boxes scattered near my bed with easy access to books. Nothing seemed different, yet they followed me. They were still smiling. My Jr. High trophies and HS diploma were still on my desk next to birthday pictures taken by waiters and junk, known as knick knacks because such items were also gifts. I finally looked in a corner. A green frog hamper (see similar). A large cylinder of bright green with floppy legs and arms, giant eyes, and of course a wide mouth, opening to the cavernous hamper. It was bigger than my night stand.

My dad said, "We noticed you didn't have a hamper, and thought this might be helpful." They could not tell me to clean my room, in my new "adult" state, so as not to infringe upon my independence and shorten my length of stay. After being at work and discussing in depth the budget with the chairman of the board, talking to a local newsreporter, signing the checks, and meeting with my 4 staff members, I had felt as though I was quite an adult. Fortunately, my parents had not forgotten my youth. I wore a much larger and less suspicious smile than that of my step-mom for the rest of the night. It will always be good to be a kid.