I'm currently watching Amanda Palmer's webcast. She is speaking at Berklee College in Boston. This is yet another time I wish my sister had chosen to attend Berklee, and my family could have afforded it. I would love to be there. I have endless questions for Ms Amanda. Perhaps she could do a college discussion tour. UW-Madison would need to be on her tour. Please and thank you.
Ms Palmer discussed her own difficulties in college. How she was not happy. How it killed her creative drive. How she was constantly at odds with her environment.
I feel like we're taught that college will be the time of your life. That high school is hell and college is your reward for having gone through it. College is your time to live before you get thrown in to some career you're destined to hate, and continue to work through simply for the money.
As a sophomore in college, I feel this isn't true. High school wasn't amazing, but how can it be with all those crappy hormones messing with your mind? But college. It's a whole new ball game. Having always been in environments where you make friends because you're with these people every day and have no other options, going to college is such a culture shock. You don't have these forced groups. You're in classes where you sit and listen, and sometimes sleep, but don't get to know those around you.
My biggest problem: I don't want to get to know those around me. As I sit in class, I listen to the small conversations around me. "I got so drunk last night, I don't think my homework is even in English". "Are you buying the beer tonight?" "I slept with that guy; big mistake!" Honestly, is that as good as it gets? I'm not attending a college for idiots (although I did last year, and the conversations were even worse there), so why are there all these people lacking substance?
You may think I'm being judgmental, and that's fine. I typically am. You may think I'm acting superior, but come on, it's hard not to. I'm 19. I don't drink. I don't party. I'm not a whore. I want friends, but I won't settle for individuals whose social lives revolve around one beverage or another. I don't need booze to be fun. I don't need sex to be happy. Where are all the people like me?
I'm not friends with many people from high school. We've all gone separate ways, and some of them have changed so much I can't even recognize them. Nor do I want to. You know who you are.
College is isolation for me. Admittedly, this could be my own fault. I live off campus, ten miles away. I'm not in the community. But again, with the people I keep meeting, why would I want to?
Most of my friends aren't in college, either by choice, or they've already passed that point in their lives. It's odd. These people seem so much smarter than those I'm surrounded by at school. How is the twenty year old at Journey's smarter than the biotech major at UW Madison?
I recently had a discussion with my father. He works at a prestigious computer company named after a type of fruit, and is revered in his field. He often interviews individuals looking to join the company. He discussed with me one individual who blew his mind. This man attended a prestigious tech college, had work experience at several wonderful companies, and was apparently able to speak several languages. According to my father, this man was one of the dumbest individuals he'd ever met, and could not understand how he even graduated.
This incident lead to the discussion of college. (It all connects!) The job market is so competitive that everyone has to go to college to have a chance. You have to get your masters. But does that mean you're smart? Do you even know what you're doing?
I think I'm off the beaten path, to a point. I'll sum it up: I feel isolated at college because I'm surrounded by idiots who have to go to school just to get some entry level job. My creative drive is drained as I have no social life to gain ideas from.
For someone like me, for someone who feels like they are an artist, college is killing me. Dramatic as it sounds, when you have your main outlet taken away, you become lost. When you are struggling in one area of your life, slowly, other areas become a struggle as well.
I'd love to hear other thoughts. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Perhaps you have the secret to life, to college life, to college artistry, and I would love to know what that secret is.
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