This time next year, I can write to you, the reader, from my college dorm. Maybe with my roommate looking over my shoulder.
Where is this college? Who will this roommate be?
I have the answer to neither of these questions. It's late October of my senior year of high school, and no applications bearing my name and accomplishments have been sent out. I've been largely avoiding the topic of my plans for next year...because they are non-existent.
I'm afraid. I'm afraid to leave the people I was raised with, everyone from my past who has shaped who I've become (for the better or the worse). I'm afraid of the magnitude of this decision, and even more so I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. There are hundreds of schools out there, I'm sure, at which I could be very happy. I'm confident that I can adjust to being anywhere with anyone, but there's always the little voices of college reps telling you that you *will* find a place that's perfect for you.
What if no where is perfect for me? Or what if *anywhere* is perfect for me?
I'm a big fan of small public liberal arts schools. This is very possibly owing to the fact that I've grown up just blocks from one and love it...but there's something holding me back from just effing the college search and going with my gut...to stay at UMM. (I really, really do love it here. I'm not just saying that. I feel so at home on campus, I love the size and surprising diversity, I love the direction in which this school is headed.) What is this something, I'm asking myself?
Maybe it's because I've been hearing my whole life about how much potential people seem to think I have. So my parents read to me when I was little and I played outside instead of watching TV. This seems to have given me a huge advantage over the other kids. It taught me to think. It taught me to explore. It made me into one of the Smart Kids. The ones who are supposed to go to some big name school and get their PhD in something hard to pronounce and do something good for the world. I hate that people I know seem to have these expectations for me. What if I don't live up to them?
Maybe it's because many of my close friends are branching out, dreaming of actually heading off to some big name school next year. Maybe I don't want it to seem like I'm somehow not as capable or ambitious if my best friends are making their mark on a 40,000 dollars-a-year institution and I'm at public school X. I'm so god damn competitive, I can't just let myself be happy. I need to be happy and reassured that I'm not coming in last in this stupid race that society has constructed for us.
I'm not done here, but I have to go to class. Yay.
FYI
12 years ago
2 comments:
Staying at UMM is not good enough? I'm offended. Would you rather go to Fargo/Moorhead and hang out with only Morris peoples? Because they totally do that.
but seriously, go wherever the hell you want. and if you decide that UMM was the place for you, we'll be here waiting for you to transfer back.
Choosing the school should be the last thing you do when you're looking at colleges. first decide your major. What do you want to do when you're done with school? What do you plan on being involved with in school? What departments will mean the most to you while you're at school? Think about these things first, maybe even create a chart listing what you want in a school. Then go through and find 5 or so colleges that have interested you in any way, pull up your chart and go through and evaluate each school listing what they have and don't have on the chart. Then take the top three and revisit them. Act like you're not really interested , and ask questions about what makes their program stick out above everyone else's. Be a bitch, ask the student tour guide what they dislike about the school. Ask the departments what problems they're currently experiencing, what the future looks like.
These are the questions that tour guides and professors hate. Because they have to make the decision to either tell the truth or lie. And if you're good you'll be able to tell the difference. If you're interested in their jazz band or their music department go the day they have a performance and stay for the performance, listen and be honest. Do you like what you see, and hear? Meet the students, hang out with them. Maybe even go to a party, I suggest you visit the schools by yourself. It helps free of your thoughts, and feel free to wonder and observe and explore.
Staying where you grew up is okay, there's allot of people out there that do it. But think about these things:
Will you be at college?
( Even though everyone says that they will separate themselves from their high school lives, most fail miserably at doing so. And in the process they fail to truly develop the friendships that others develop. )
Where will you spend most of your time?
(It's a small town, will you be at the same coffee shop that all your friends still go to? Seeing the faces you've seen all your life may hamper your development in unseen ways, stopping your creative flow.)
What will be expected of you?
( Unlike you friends who go to school a few hours away, you will be there. What will people expect of you? Your parents? Friends? Work?
Overall all I think that if the UMM feels right then go for it, but don't deny yourself of other schools. Most importantly: You need to get away.
You need to get away and take the time to organize your thoughts. see what everything means to you as an individual. And this means by yourself for at least two weeks. Study abroad over the summer, do you know a language? So maybe you know spanish.......go study in spain for a few weeks. Do something that will separate you from home. That gives you that feeling of being away.
If UMM is it, you'll be able to tell. If it's not, you'll be able to feel it. The limb won't reconnect with the bod correctly.
You can always go somewhere else for a semester or a year, and if you don't like it transfer back to UMM.
Also you talked about liking smaller schools. The size really doesn't matter, what matters is you're ability to meet people and make friends. Which from the sounds of it you don't really have a problem with. Don't let the size of a school intimidate you, you'll still develop friendships. it's just up to you when meeting people, if you want that friendship to progress or not.
Overall all, wherever you go Bess Boever; I think you will do just fine. You're just the type of person who has a hard time because you hate making decisions. For fear that in doing so you may be limiting yourself or doing the wrong thing.
Become water, and just flow with life. And where you're not meant to flow, there'll be a dam to stop or delay you. But with effort, you'll be able to burst through anything that's preventing you. Because that's the beauty of water, it eventually succeeds.
Oh, and don't just know and judge schools based on other peoples thoughts. Explore them and make your own judgements. For example I found Augustana to be an utter waste of my time, after going off the beliefs of others that it was a really nice place.
Best of luck in your adventures Bess Boever,
You'll find the right place.
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