Higher Ed

A friend recently wrote, poignantly, about her desire for a college degree and her regret at not getting one. Both of us can hold intelligent conversations with college grads on many subjects and neither has any reason to feel inferior. I wrote this years ago. I think the big difference between our attitudes is that I made a conscious choice not to seek a degree. I've taken community college and university classes. I may get that piece of paper one day. Looking through my daughter's course catalog, or the ones from the local U, has me saying, "OOOH, that sounds like fun!" frequently. I still can't justify spending too much money (and time) on personal fun at this stage of my life. So, I dabble. I pay for my kids' colleges - 2 down, 2 to go! And I am forever and always annoyed by people who think I'm living my life by default. I'm here because I wanted to be here when I made choices in the past. I want to be here in the future, which affects my present choices. Make no mistake, they are choices and I consciously make them.

One size NEVER fits all.

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I was always sure I'd go to college, from the time I was a small child. It was just a given fact. My parents, neither of whom had attended college, assumed all four of us kids would. They even had a plan to sell some of their property to pay for our educations.

Somehow, only one of us ever graduated from college, and it wasn't me. The land never did get sold, much to my relief. I know they were being good parents and planning ahead, but I hated the thought of whittling their gorgeous acreage down to a standard suburban lot.

All of us were bright. When you're bright, your teachers all simply expect you to do well in school and go on to college, and our teachers expected that of all of us.

I was a sophomore in high school before I ever questioned my path straight to the local university. I think it may have started with my rebellion against having my courses laid out for me. I'd always been in the accelerated classes in junior high, where kids were automatically divided by ability. That was fine with me; it struck me as the way things should be. I started to chafe when I entered high school, when theoretically I should have more doors open to me.

Part of getting older was getting to choose your courses. In junior high, they'd let us choose electives, but in high school we even got to choose our required courses. As long as we had the correct number of credits in each area, we could choose which courses we wanted to take. Did you want earth science or life science? Poetry or American literature? It was great. What bothered me was the automatic assumption that I would have the same taste as all the other smart kids; or worse, that my taste didn't matter.

It seemed that everyone, from my peers to my teachers to my guidance counselor, had already decided which classes I would take. My peers were the worst. Even in our freshman year, I'd get comments like, "You're taking Algebra 1 instead of Geometry?" in an incredulous tone. Well, yes, I was. It was accepted that The Smart Kids took a combined Algebra 1-2 class if they had to take anything "lower level;" otherwise they went straight into Geometry. Even Algebra 1-2 was too much for me to want to handle. Math was not my strong suit, and I didn't much enjoy it. My choices in other areas were equally suspect. "You are going to take (fill in the blank), aren't you?" When I didn't take Spanish – my elective slot was filled by a theater class, something that was nonnegotiable with me – people were aghast. "But you have to have four years of a foreign language if you want to get into a good university!"

By my second year of high school, I was tired of the flak. I was tired of hearing, "But you're so smart!" as though I had signed up for special ed classes or some such thing. I was sick of hearing that I'd "never get into 'a good school.'" I wasn't applying to Harvard, thank you very much.

In my junior year, I quietly decided that I wasn't going to college. I couldn't imagine my parents being able to afford it, sold property or no. I didn't think I'd get enough scholarship money to make a sizeable enough dent. Student loans rubbed me the wrong way - I hate debt. A full time student existence was not in my immediate future. The other Smart Kids kept expecting me to Get With the Program. They were continually astonished, or disgusted, that I wasn't taking trigonometry. Although I expected to hold a job for most of my life, I didn't really want a career, and I couldn't see knocking myself out to pay for something I wasn't going to use. I didn't say as much, to my peers, teachers or parents.

By my senior year, I was sure. When the other kids would ask me what scholarships I'd applied for, or remind me of filing deadlines that were approaching, I'd tell them, "I'm not going to college." If I thought I'd heard it before, I was now listening to a veritable, never ending chorus of, "But you're so smart!" People were horrified. One of my closest friends stopped speaking to me for over a week, he was so upset. He was far more upset than my parents were.

In both my junior and senior years, I took only one Advanced Placement course each year, and that was English. I could walk through that in my sleep, and on occasion practically did. Although it goes against my nature to do sloppy work, I was no longer vigilant about deadlines. The standard treatment for late papers was to shave off half a grade or a full grade (depending on your teacher) for every day it was late. Knowing I'd done an "A" assignment, I knew what grade I'd get for turning it in a day or two late. I was no longer worried about my grade point average. Occasionally I'd feel guilty about that. Once, my teacher wrote, "Why, oh why can't these be in on time?" on an assignment I'd turned in late enough that the "A" work had earned a "C." I liked her and felt I'd let her down.

I had no way of knowing ahead of time that my last two years of high school would be extraordinarily traumatic for me, for matters unrelated to academics. I've always loved learning for its own sake, but I left high school embittered toward teachers, administrators and school government in general. When I finally signed up for some community college courses a year and a half later, I was still so traumatized that I was literally sick to my stomach at the thought of walking back into another classroom. I cried for days. The courses were the fluffiest stuff I could imagine, too – art, local history and fiction writing.

I was annoyed, before classes even started, by the attitude of the student helping me register. They had a list of standard questions they were supposed to ask you, to help the school track its enrollment. "What are these for?" the student behind the desk asked as I handed him my schedule.

I was puzzled. "For?"

He looked mildly annoyed. I was supposed to know the script, apparently. "Yes. For. You know – going towards a degree? Personal enjoyment?"

Now I got it. "Personal enjoyment," I said.

He looked up from the desk, absolutely shocked. "All these?" he wanted to know.

It was my turn to be annoyed. "Yes. All these," I told him in a steely voice. It was three lousy classes, for crying out loud. I was tempted to snap, "Have you no personal interest in art, history and fiction?" but I didn't. I figured the answer to that was pretty obvious.

I enjoyed the classes. The worst problem I had was that my art instructor had a habit of doing things for me when I asked a question, rather than explaining it. I was having fun; I'd signed up in order to have fun. Success!

I disliked the tendency most people had to categorize. I did not like it when someone tried to console me about the school, telling me that, "Plenty smart students go to the community college first," or "You can always transfer later." I was not feeling insecure about the college or my place there. Why were others? I also disliked meeting students who hastened to let you know that they were only there temporarily, that soon they would be on to bigger and better things. I wasn't impressed, and I didn't care.

I was scheduled to get married toward the end of the semester. Just before the wedding, my soon to be husband was transferred to a facility three and a half hours away. We'd be moving to a new town as soon as we were back from our three day honeymoon. I dropped out of my classes, knowing that I would never make the commute to attend them, and too tied up in the wedding and moving to see if other arrangements could be made.

The next time I signed up for higher education, it was correspondence classes. By then, I had a husband, a mortgage and two small children. I was perfectly happy with the correspondence requirements. I had up to a year to complete any class. The work wasn't hard, and they actually liked it when I thought for myself. A lot of my high school experience had been spent regurgitating whatever the teacher said. The teachers seemed to like it that way. Quote the teacher's own opinion, and they were likely to feel that you were paying attention. Use your own ideas, and they thought you'd been ignoring them.

Maybe I'm just touchy, but I also disliked a great deal of the reaction to my education by mail. One friend tried very hard to convince me that I needed actual classes with a physically present teacher. "You really need the support, and the exchange of ideas! Nothing compares to the discussions you can have with a good professor." Well intentioned advice, of course. Really, though, I think the issue is that she needs to be surrounded by other people who share similar ideas, and she needs to be around a professor who validates her work and opinions. I really don't need that much outside validation. She always seemed to assume that I needed whatever she needed. After all, we were both Smart People.

I also hated it when someone thought I'd finally seen the light. "Now you can start using your brain!" they'd say. What did people think I did in my everyday life, drool on myself? Did they imagine that raising two toddlers could be done on auto pilot? Besides, even if I had a degree in my hand, I'd be doing the same things every day as I currently was. I wasn't trying to make a pre med program or design cities of the future. I just wanted to raise children and a garden.

I found that my best bet, really, was to not discuss it at all.

I also found that, in the absence of any statement to the contrary, people who met me as an adult assumed I'd graduated from college. I corrected them when they said something about it. I never thought I ought to be embarrassed by my lack of credentials. Of course, this brought on its own trials.

After we moved back within commuting distance of the city I grew up in, I went back to doing community theater. I'd spent two years working with the local university's repertory company before I got married, and it felt comfortable to go back to work there. The students got university credit for their participation, but the company was open to everyone in the community.

While doing repertory theater, I made friends with a funny, talented man named Mike. He was a few years older than I was. We had great conversations. I got along famously with him. We would talk for hours. During the course of several plays, we got to know each other fairly well. I saw him outside of the theater, even having him join my husband, my kids and me for holiday meals.

One summer, he went back to the state he'd grown up in. When he came back, we talked about the trip. It had been awkward being around old friends and classmates, Mike said. "Their world just seems so small. None of them went to college, and most of them are still living in the same town. We just had nothing in common anymore."

"You know what it's like, " he said, "when you've grown up and moved on and other people haven't. We couldn't even hold a reasonable conversation. Without the experience of college, they just don't have much to say or any way to relate to you any more."

I was actually very amused. "Mike! I never went to college!" All I had under my belt then were three dropped courses.

He looked like I'd kicked him. "You didn't?"

"No! And it doesn't bother my friends a bit. My best friend from high school is a lawyer, and we still have plenty to talk about." Silly me, I actually thought that he'd realize that he'd been judgmental. "Dan never went to college, either."

After that night, Mike all but stopped speaking to me. I found that I suddenly made him very uncomfortable. There were no more long conversations, no more visits outside the theater, no phone calls. He barely smiled at me anymore. It was aggravating, but what was there to do? I eventually just wrote off the friendship.

By the time we worked together again years later, he seemed to have mellowed. We saw each other only at the theater, but I was again included in his general conversation. I was treated the same way the other members of the company were, including the ones with performing arts degrees. That was nice.

I'll still correct erroneous assumptions most of the time, especially if it's someone I'll be spending a great deal of time with. Sometimes, though, it's just not worth the effort.

Recently, Dan and I were hired to photograph a high school reunion. One of the reunion committee members was talking to me after the big reunion dinner, explaining that he hardly ever saw any of his high school classmates any more. "I'm just not as close to them as I am to the people I went to college with. You know how that works." It was a statement, not a question. Now, I thought, was a time to spit out some of the pat answers I knew he expected.

"Sure. In college, they're there because they want to be, not because it's the law or because mommy and daddy make them go. They're spending good money to be there, too, so they're a lot more invested in what's going on. And, you're less likely to end up sitting next to some waste case."

His face lit up as he accepted me as a kindred spirit. "Exactly!" he responded.

There are a couple of people I grew up with who simply wrote me off as a traitor to the cause years ago. Some, I'm sure, are puzzled still. Most probably don't even think about me any more, much less assess my choices. And, there are at least a couple who, despite their constant talk about how smart I am, are sure that I took the course in life I did simply because I didn't know there were other options.

That kind of sentiment really irks me. I've known people to think that my self esteem was just too low; they're sure that I just didn't grasp the fact that I could go to college. One well meaning friend used to be very vocal, constantly saying things to me like, "You just don't realize how remarkable you are!" It was tedious. Here I thought the entire point of being smart was to chart your own course.

Luckily, most people with these opinions have stopped saying such things to me. I used to hear, "But you could have been (or done) anything!" as if I myself did not have that information. I know that I could have. I weighed the options, I chose, I channeled my energy into my choice. Isn't that what being smart is all about?

It was irksome, too, to deal with people who thought that I was somehow supposed to feel hindered, positively chained, by having been born into a financially strapped family, and I was supposed to see higher education as a way to rise above my station, so to speak. Unfortunately, I've never particularly seen the term "ambitious" as being complimentary. Most ambitious people seem to me to be miserable; they're always scratching, biting and clawing their way to their goals. I have a much more mellow personality. I also never feared being "stuck" in suburbia. Suburbia is a pretty nice place. My long range goals were never in conflict with a picket fence in the 'burbs.

I'm still good at the things I've always been good at (and lousy at the things I've always been lousy at.) I was never one to feel that my brain was atrophying or that I was being stifled by taking care of children and a house. What I do every day is far more challenging than anything I ever did as a paid occupation.

I also can see no sense in leaving my children in the care of other people while I went out to change the world. Why would someone tell me I was overqualified to spend my day with children? Do we want our kids to be in the care of people who are not bright, well read and capable? When my oldest children were small, I was quite aware that I needed to make a concerted effort to occasionally speak to adults, preferably about topics unrelated to parenting, but most of that was due to the realization that I could very quickly and easily lapse into an isolated lifestyle. Now, years later, I worry less about it than ever. If I end up in my own little universe, well, at least it will be one I created.

When I used to complain to one friend about feeling stereotyped, I'd end up feeling even more frustrated. Why couldn't people assume I was smart unless I proved otherwise, I wanted to know. Her answers tended to make me angrier than I already was. "Well, you have to understand that you're the exception," she would say. "Most people in your situation aren't."

"How would you know?" I'd end up snapping. She probably wasn't on speaking terms with half a dozen non college grads. How would she know what "most" of them are like?

I often read letters from highly educated friends whose grammar and punctuation make me cringe. I've had teachers send home notes with my kids that contain glaring errors of the same sort. I may be guilty of using too much slang in my speech and writing, saying things like "gonna" and "hafta," but by golly I know what the rules of the language are. Yes, I occasionally choose to ignore them. I'm sure speeders know the speed limit, too.

I enjoy education for its own sake. With luck and more than a little money, one day I may end up having taken enough classes to qualify for a degree. I won't feel any better about myself, and my career goals won't be any different.

I stopped years ago trying to convince this small, vocal faction that my self esteem is fine. I truly try not to worry about the people who fear that I've somehow been swallowed whole by mediocrity. It is not my job to worry about or change perceptions. If there is joy in being smart, it ought to come from knowing that you are doing with your brain exactly what you want to do with it.