And now, a message from my better half in Montana.
It's nothing new when a college student explains that their college experience isn't turning out the way they envisioned it. And given that these people are in college, they'll probably try to rationalize this view quite efficiently. I am, of course, no exception to this: the fact of the matter is, college sucks. But I may be saying this for completely different reasons than others might.
I recently moved to Missoula, Montana, a collegiate, liberal enclave in a huge valley under the rolling Beartooth Mountains. Let me say, first off, that Missoula is a great town: it is inhabited (it seems so far) by people with a refreshing respect for community, environment and intellect and unashamedly so - Missoula is Liberal, hear them roar. And that's one reason why I chose this town to move to this fall when I transferred there as an incoming junior.
But let me say that, while the town has lived up to the high expectations I set, the school, thus far has not. I feel bad saying this, because I feel as though I'm letting the university down since I had already begun to identify it as my school before I even left my previous one (Western Michigan University).
So, when I started to allow myself to realize that the school may not have been all I cracked it up to be, I made to sure to fully analyze why that might be, so as to ensure I wasn't just being, well, a total pussy. And what I realized, along with any school that has disappointed in the past, was that, however unlikely, it was the program I had a problem with.
I say this seems unlikely because what 20-something in school really gives a shit what the program is, as long as they're getting drunk and getting laid. But, the thing is, Missoula just isn't that kind of a town and so what's left is the program at the school. Individually, each program has its benefits. I'm referring to the creative writing program, which is one of the best in the country and the journalism program which rivals that of Arizona State's Walter Cronkite's school of Journalism (a school I declined to go even after acceptance because of my affinity for Montana).
But, it's the wider program as a whole that I had a problem with. The problem, I found was that, despite the fact I knew I wanted to be a writer since the eighth grade, after my transfer from WMU, I had to retake general education classes that, while a freshman in Michigan just seemed like a way of earning one's dues. But, as a junior with a sense of direction, seemed like more of a god damn nuisance.
I'm taking Political Science 101, a class where we discuss the complicated differences between democrat and republican (a topic I taught myself circa seventh grade when I started to read books). I'm also taking Microeconomics 100, where I've learned (and relearned) the difficult law of Supply and Demand from a man who seems more like a robot, more detached from the ways in which these concepts affect the public than Henry Paulson.
And what this all adds up to is the fact that I was disappointed at first that, despite the fact that I orchestrated a difficult move across the country all for my dedication to a university that seemed to be treating me like a tenth grader. But then I realized something: I had been to two universities thus far, applied to six and talked to friends and family who attend several others and they're all the same. Whether they are in beautiful mountain settings or in drab mid-western sub-commercial metropolises.
The fact of the matter is the liberal arts design is flawed and it's a waste of time. At least for people like me, who actually know what they want. What I want may be simple (coffee shops open late and people who like to talk over a glass of beer instead of hang upside down over a keg), but the university culture has somewhere along the way failed to deliver on these promises. All these schools with big Ws in front of their names and with "-tech" after them have lost sight of the education beneath their classes - that teaching creative writing majors about the nuances of Supply and Demand is just a waste of time, but allowing them to search out and choose their own paths is far more beneficial than they seem to admit to themselves.
I recently moved to Missoula, Montana, a collegiate, liberal enclave in a huge valley under the rolling Beartooth Mountains. Let me say, first off, that Missoula is a great town: it is inhabited (it seems so far) by people with a refreshing respect for community, environment and intellect and unashamedly so - Missoula is Liberal, hear them roar. And that's one reason why I chose this town to move to this fall when I transferred there as an incoming junior.
But let me say that, while the town has lived up to the high expectations I set, the school, thus far has not. I feel bad saying this, because I feel as though I'm letting the university down since I had already begun to identify it as my school before I even left my previous one (Western Michigan University).
So, when I started to allow myself to realize that the school may not have been all I cracked it up to be, I made to sure to fully analyze why that might be, so as to ensure I wasn't just being, well, a total pussy. And what I realized, along with any school that has disappointed in the past, was that, however unlikely, it was the program I had a problem with.
I say this seems unlikely because what 20-something in school really gives a shit what the program is, as long as they're getting drunk and getting laid. But, the thing is, Missoula just isn't that kind of a town and so what's left is the program at the school. Individually, each program has its benefits. I'm referring to the creative writing program, which is one of the best in the country and the journalism program which rivals that of Arizona State's Walter Cronkite's school of Journalism (a school I declined to go even after acceptance because of my affinity for Montana).
But, it's the wider program as a whole that I had a problem with. The problem, I found was that, despite the fact I knew I wanted to be a writer since the eighth grade, after my transfer from WMU, I had to retake general education classes that, while a freshman in Michigan just seemed like a way of earning one's dues. But, as a junior with a sense of direction, seemed like more of a god damn nuisance.
I'm taking Political Science 101, a class where we discuss the complicated differences between democrat and republican (a topic I taught myself circa seventh grade when I started to read books). I'm also taking Microeconomics 100, where I've learned (and relearned) the difficult law of Supply and Demand from a man who seems more like a robot, more detached from the ways in which these concepts affect the public than Henry Paulson.
And what this all adds up to is the fact that I was disappointed at first that, despite the fact that I orchestrated a difficult move across the country all for my dedication to a university that seemed to be treating me like a tenth grader. But then I realized something: I had been to two universities thus far, applied to six and talked to friends and family who attend several others and they're all the same. Whether they are in beautiful mountain settings or in drab mid-western sub-commercial metropolises.
The fact of the matter is the liberal arts design is flawed and it's a waste of time. At least for people like me, who actually know what they want. What I want may be simple (coffee shops open late and people who like to talk over a glass of beer instead of hang upside down over a keg), but the university culture has somewhere along the way failed to deliver on these promises. All these schools with big Ws in front of their names and with "-tech" after them have lost sight of the education beneath their classes - that teaching creative writing majors about the nuances of Supply and Demand is just a waste of time, but allowing them to search out and choose their own paths is far more beneficial than they seem to admit to themselves.
posted by The Looney Bin at
2:07 AM
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