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....