There are certain checkpoints in your life, where you have to step back and reflect on where you are going. In less than a month, I’ll be graduating, leaving the school I’ve attended for 12 full years, where I’ve built a family and a self and (hopefully) learned a lot, taking a step into life.
This is one of those moments.
This is one of those moments.
To complement this grand closure, we’ve started reading Excellent Sheep, which talks about how this generation is--to put it nicely--a bit f**ked up. Since the day we are born, we’re raised to be like sheep, without questioning life. Just like excellent sheep. William Deresiewicz, the author of this book, and ex-Yale professor pinpoints one of the largest epidemics of our time from his experience at an Ivy-legue schools: the miseducation of the elite. His findings--so far--reflect the vibe I feel as a student, especially since I’m kind of outside of it. I’ll start with an excerpt of his that is true for how I feel, at times, towards the mindset some of my peers have adopted: |
“I met many wonderful young people during my years in the Ivy League--bright, thoughtful, creative kids whom it was a pleasure to talk with and learn from. But most of them seemed content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. Very few were passionate about ideas. Very few saw college as part of a larger project of intellectual discovery and development, one that they directed by themselves and for themselves.”
What I think he’s getting at with this, is that we’ve been institutionalized: School starts in collaborative play, the most natural way for humans to process information. But, there’s a point of fluctuation (I learned something in math!) between sixth grade and the time you apply to college that all of it’s loooong lost. We start learning for a test, and end up living by it instead. We try to be “super people”, doing a bit of everything, like every other student, while we’re killing time to do that thing we love, that at the end will make us stand out. We can even cry over "mediocre" report card and SAT score, for it seems to be representative of our self-worth--Being academically perfect is all that matters anyway!
Then, my question is:
How and where along our school careers, did we lose sensibility towards
building upon things like character and purpose? Why is it that we don’t stop to think about why are we getting an education-- not to mention how we’re getting it-- in the first place?
How and where along our school careers, did we lose sensibility towards
building upon things like character and purpose? Why is it that we don’t stop to think about why are we getting an education-- not to mention how we’re getting it-- in the first place?
In the system as it is now, there’s no time for it. Society, (almost unanimously) has “equated virtue, dignity and happiness with material success.” (The “almost” works as my bit of hope.) Success, that the diploma of an elite higher education assures. In reality, as the pressure to get the shiniest piece of paper in the market increases, we might be sacrificing the part of “college education” we are really looking for: the adventure with oneself.
I started coloring outside the lines two years ago, by chance, surrounded by 13 people that do as well, and it’s the only reason why the shiny piece of paper doesn’t call to me anymore. Over the past few months of reflecting with the IA about what I truly want out of life, I realized that for that self-discovery to happen, college is not the next thing for me, not just yet. For my film and media pursuits and formation as a person, it was suddently logical to take a half-gap year. Now that the decision has been solidified, I couldn’t be happier. |
Then I arrive today to my family lunch, and college talk comes in amongst my uncles. They talk about the shiny piece of pape r, how rankings and information on how many of their graduates get a wealthy job is out there. How the return in future income is worth, or not worth tuition. How I should take a look at that; that’s important. I say that’s not my priority. I try to explain my ideal, “Well that’s a way of seeing it” they manage to add. They’re not used to seeing it this way, so they pretend to get the logic behind my plan.
Will they, someday? Sometimes, I think we’re all just crazy.