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Sunday, July 15, 2007

School: Preparing Us For More School

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I've come to the conclusion that I have always been prepared for the pretend world -- that is, school and school-like situations. I've always received good grades. I think I've had like 1 or 2 B's, like 3 or 4 A-'s and the rest A's my entire college career. I'm well adjusted to the learning environment, and all that crap.

But, as we journalism majors seem to be reminded somewhat often, this really does not matter at all. What really matters is experience. A newspaper isn't going to care that you got an A in every reporting class you took. What they're going to care about is whether you can write. Which I suppose makes sense. Problem is, I think I'm more prepared for taking the class.

I'm not ready to be released into the "Real World" (and not just because working at a newspaper isn't my ideal job). I don't think school has prepared me for the "Real World." I know how to do work and answer questions to the satisfaction of my professors and teachers. I'm pretty good at reading them and being able to tell what level of bullshit is going to get me an A. But surely, real life can't be so easy.

Case in point: I took this one class last semester. I'm not going to reveal the name just in case any professors or fellow students or deans or whatever happen to stumble upon this. It was a journalism class, but it wasn't a writing intensive class. Now, I had this professor before, and overall I think he is a good professor. I learn a lot from him, and he's actually interesting to listen to. However, having had him a semester previous, I knew just want I had to do in this class. I knew exactly how hard I had to work, how much I had to pay attention. We had to write 3 papers in that class. I wrote every single one of them the night before they were due. In my opinion, only one of them was good. The other were complete crap. I made up theses and tried to make the research fit what I was trying to prove. I didn't make up the research, I just chose to omit what would be detrimental to my case (Note: the theses weren't complete crap, but they perhaps were full of holes, and I just plain didn't care about them).

I guess everyone does this, but the point here is that I worked only hard enough to get by (albeit, with an A... though somehow I DID manage to pull out a 100 on that final exam. I'm not quite sure how that happened, haha). But what I'm saying here is that I know how to excel at school. But I have this fear that the real world is not going to be like this. I get into classes because I register on time. I get into Honour Societies because I do well in my classes. I get all these privileges and awards for little effort, it feels. And yet, I can't find a job to save my life.

By the time I graduate, I will have somewhere close to $70,000 in loans to pay off. Probably a little more. How am I going to pay those off with no job? After 16 (17 after this year) years of schooling, I don't think I'm prepared at all to live on my own like a normal citizen.

[Though, what little hope I still have left in my being able to create a future for myself is making me seriously consider moving to Georgia when I graduate. I think there are a few career/job opportunities I can work my way through there. And can you believe I'm even thinking about going to grad school? Me -- Ms. Anti-Grad School!... heh... maybe it's so that I can keep going to school and I won't have to worry about this scary place called the "Real World".]

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