Why College Wasn't for Me
College was always something I was expected to do, but not something I ever wanted to do for myself. And that may sound pretentious or bratty, especially since so many people would love to further their education, but there are so many factors that go into a kid being successful in college and I don’t think I had those factors. While I never really pushed against the idea of college to my parents or friends, it was always something I never saw as necessary for what I wanted to do in my life. I have met quite a few people lately who regret going to school, or who have just graduated from college and see no reason to go. I wanted to just take a second and outline my journey a little bit so that others can read it and see college isn’t mandatory for success, and that if you are in school, there is no one path to follow to graduate.
For starters, I had no idea what I was going to go to school for. When I was little, I had the desire to be a marine biologist, but somewhere around 7th grade, I realized that maybe science wasn’t for me. I loved the ocean and the animals that lived in it, but biology, chemistry, and all the math that went into it didn’t make sense to my brain. But around this time I fell in love with writing and dance, which was enough interest for 12 years old. By the time I got to high school, I was told I was preparing for college but no one gave me (or anyone else in my class) concrete steps or plans that we were supposed to be making for the college we would go to in 4 years. I went to a very small high school in a pretty rural town, so the emphasis was more on getting kids who graduated from high school and focused less on university education. Sports and science were huge at my high school, and I did dance outside of it and didn’t have a knack for science.
By my junior year, when everyone is supposed to be picking schools and making sure they have proper requirements and taking SAT’s, I was pretty sure I was going to go into a ballet academy, most likely in San Francisco, and train professionally. Going to more school seemed like the last thing I wanted to do, and dance was all I wanted to. Unfortunately, I injured my ankle and then got Mono on top of that, which only made my injury worse. Long story short, the ankle injury became a chronic issue and lead to two more knee injuries since my ankle was so much weaker than it had been. My junior year was extremely hard emotionally because I had to face some hard truths that I wasn’t going to be able to make it as a professional dancer. Through this time, I had a family friend who was messaging me often to try and get a college tour set up in California where we could go and tour to see what I wanted, but I was too upset with everything else that I didn’t even utilize her or her offer. College may have gone a lot different for me if I had just dealt with my heartbreak over ballet later, and gone with her on the tours.
Senior year of high school rolled around and I had not applied to any colleges. I knew I wanted to move out of my house and get out of that tiny town, but I had no other ideas or motives for how I was going to do that. I had gone and see my school counselor several times to see what my options were and how to achieve them, and each time she pointed me back to schools in Idaho that I didn’t want to go to. I told them my interests and what I wanted, I was told those were unrealistic and I needed to focus. So when my senior project rolled around, I passive-aggressively did it on why taking a gap year between high school and college was beneficial. I got a great grade but was told several times if I didn’t go right away I would lose my momentum, which seemed ridiculous to me since I didn’t have any, to begin with. Eventually, I stumbled upon an au pair website and decided I would move to a new country and then go to college later. Unfortunately, I hopped on this bandwagon a little late and was unable to afford the trip to be able to move to a new country. So, I settled with moving in with a family in Portland to be their live-in nanny.
Before I proceed, I want to point out that this whole thing was the first mistake that was made. I was young, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I was not able to do what I really wanted (dance) and all my other interests were shirked as something stupid I wouldn’t make a living off of. I did some research of my own, but whenever I had questions or needed help there was no one there who could do that for me. I was left to my own devices and left to guide myself at 17 years old. My guidance counselors didn’t guide me, they shut me down. My friends knew what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go so they offered to help me fill out applications, but they were the same age! They couldn’t guide me. I wasn’t being heard by anyone. So I took a job I didn’t truly want so I could get out of my town and figure it out.
The nanny job taught me a lot, so even though it wasn’t my first choice, I learned so many valuable things. Like how to draw boundaries with an employer, how to advocate for myself, and how to parent kids who had never been parented before. Mostly what this job gave me was free time. I worked Monday-Friday, 8 am-6 pm, and then had weekends off most of the time. I researched schools and programs and emailed anyone I could find with all of my questions. Eventually, I applied to two schools I liked but didn’t have my program (fashion and journalism) but would do, and one that had a magazine specific program I was in love with. I also started the first version of my blog and was posting on it daily. By December of that year, I had been denied my dream program (bad SAT scores) and was going to the University of Oregon starting in January. I didn’t want to go to school, but I had no other options at the time to make my life look the way I wanted. So I left my nana job, moved two hours to Eugene, Oregon to a shoebox dorm I had to share with another person, and began my college journey.
My freshman year was a giant disaster. I was depressed and angry, I hated most of my classes, my college advisors were trying to tell me the same things my high school ones had, and to top it off, in spring term my grandfather passed away. It was a perfect storm that left me depressed and hating the school I was at. So I started to look into transferring. I finally found a school that had both fashion and journalism classes I could put together, and I could live in the city and have so many more opportunities at my fingertips. That summer I moved home to my tiny town to work, and that August I moved to Chicago.
At this point, only one person had told me it was ok if I didn’t want to finish school. One of my best friends texted me once, right when I was trying to figure out if I would transfer or not, and she told me that it was ok if I hated college and wanted to leave. She told me no law said I had to stay in school if it made me so miserable. But the pressure I felt on all sides, from family and society in general, was too much for me to just drop out. So I transferred to Columbia College Chicago where they had a fashion journalism program.
Chicago was the best college experience I had. The classes were the best, living in the city was amazing, and I would have had actual opportunities to get internships and move forward in my career. But, after my first semester, they ended the fashion journalism program and since I was so new, I was not grandfathered in. My endometriosis also began to take over and I was feeling horrible all the time. By my second semester, it was decided that at the end of the school year I would move in with my dad to get a handle on my health and find out if there was another program I could go to, or if I could go get a journalism education somewhere cheaper. In hindsight, I should have stayed in Chicago and done journalism. While it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it would have still put me closer to New York and I would have had more opportunities in Chicago.
While I was living with my dad, I took some basic classes at the community college and got some gen ed requirements out of the way. While I was there, I learned I would not be able to go to any of the schools in California I liked, and I found out I had endometriosis but would need surgery to confirm and also allow me to get meds I needed. Not a lot of college happened here but this is when I truly decided I hated school but it was already too late to leave. I was in debt up to my ears already and it seemed foolish to drop out when I only had a year and a term left to go. Once again, in hindsight, this is when I should have dropped out. Yes, there was debt and no diploma to show for it, but where I ended up was so much worse, that it would have been better to cut it off then.
The next 3 years were spent with me fighting the University of Oregon. I came back and was put on academic probation for how my grades ended the term my grandpa died. Even though I had appealed and tried to handle the situation, I was denied multiple times. Even though my first term back I got straight A’s and the next one I got all As and one B, it didn’t touch my horrible GPA and I was denied to the journalism program. I have a lot to say about this, but if you are paying tuition to a school, you should be allowed to pick your major and not have to apply to be in it. I paid my tuition, I did all the pre-requisites, and I even worked for a couple of months in the school magazine. And yet because I was trying to rebuild my GPA after a family death, I was denied access to the major I wanted. I appealed the decision and even went all the way to the dean of the Journalism school, and was still denied. Among many things, I was told my health issues made it so that I would most likely not be successful in that program and was denied three times. So I settled for an English major because it was close enough. Then, the year I thought I was done, all I was going to have to do was take one class over the summer, I was informed that the English major had been restructured and my advisor should have known that and put me on that track, not the old one I was currently on. I begged, wrote letters, had a million meetings, and did everything in my power to be able to get to graduate but was denied every time. In March of 2020, I finally graduated with a degree in English.
If you made it to the bottom of this post, way to go! I know it was a long one but after my overall crappy college experience, I felt the need to share why it was so, and why college isn’t necessary. People who want to be anything in the medical or science field, architecture, teaching, and a few others are the people who need to go to a university. But now, receptionist jobs are requiring a four-year degree which is absolute insanity. I got turned down from a medical receptionist job during the pandemic because I didn’t have my masters. While some things need all of the schooling above, so many jobs are based solely on experience and portfolio. College can help with that sometimes but in my case, I was not even permitted to get a chance to fail.
All of this was a very long-winded way to say that I shouldn't have to college. I was never happy there. I never wanted to be there. Most importantly, I didn’t have the guidance I should have had when I was in the beginning stages. Below I have listed some resources to research schools and programs on your own. A lot of high school counselors only want you to have in-state options or are unwilling to hear your unconventional dreams. There are some resources to find out some of your questions. If you don’t feel ready or do not want to go to college, then don’t. It is never too late to go back one day if you so chose, but If you don’t want to go then you will get nothing out of being there. This might sound weird but Youtube your new school before you go. If they are a good institution there won’t be anyone on there slamming them in the comments of their university video or there won’t be students making tell-alls. It’s a small way for you to be able to read reviews on your school.
I made a lot of mistakes when it came to transferring so many times and not giving myself time to decide if I really wanted to go to college or not. I was aimless and felt like I would never make anything of myself in this world if I didn’t go to college (not true). I felt shame if I was the only one of my friends not going. But then when I got there I was more miserable than before. I do have a bachelor’s in arts, English degree. While I think it will help sometimes when it comes to applying for a job in my field, most applications say they want the experience. The degree is always listed second and while that may not be true for all jobs, it is for the writing and fashion fields. Be willing to do the work on yourself to see if this is a good fit for you. College is a very expensive commitment and as I illustrated above, there is a point of no return you can hit where you just have to suck it up and stick it out.
I will do a whole post on the failings of the university system as a whole, as well and the University of Oregon’s failings, but for now, I hope this was insightful to anyone questioning on whether or not college was for them!
Madey
Resources:
Colleges that are Worth High Tuition
Roadmaps to Success this one was particularly cool! You type in what you want to do and it gives you a roadmap of how to achieve that! I did it with a couple of different career paths and a couple of times it even said college wasn’t necessary.
More Reasons to Take a Gap Year
Last One on Why You Should Take a Gap Year
What to do if You Want to Drop Out of College
One last thing; this is all coming from a place of privilege. And coming from a place of someone who is looking back on my experience after having finished it. If you are in the middle of school, talk to your friends, trusted advisors, or adults, and see what you need to do. This is not to be taken lightly, but it is ultimately up to you and no one else.