Book Talk: Uncovering the Myths of Higher Education
This will be a week when I discuss one of the themes of my novel A Wonderful Place To Die, as I mentioned in my welcome email that I’ll sometimes do.
Whenever a teacher would ask the class what we thought an author was trying to say with certain scenes or symbols in the assigned reading, I’d always think, how can there be a right or wrong answer to such a question? I mean, have any of us personally asked the author and gotten a response?
With Substack, authors can share exactly what their intentions were behind their work and have back-and-forth conversations with readers about them. This is great for writers of literary fiction, because that’s what literary fiction is for; it’s not meant just to entertain, but to dig deep into our shared human experiences for the purposes of connecting and understanding.
Tonight, we’ll delve into the American college experience. This topic can branch out into so many others, which I can’t wait to explore in future Substack posts and fiction stories.
I once had a conversation with a relative of mine about how the marketing strategy of American universities has changed over time. He told me that “back in the day,” people didn’t necessarily go to a university with the expectation of making a career out of what they studied. Higher education was primarily meant as a journey of personal enrichment and growth, an environment to foster the development of independent, critical thought. Many regarded it as a luxury.
For my generation, the millennial generation, universities had a new game plan to attract more students; they began marketing college as the essential next step for a high school grad to take if they wanted to have a high-paying and fulfilling career, thus, a more fulfilling life.
Sadly, a social stigma developed around people who didn’t go to college. They’d be regarded as lazy, directionless, and uninformed. This stigma put added pressure on kids to go to college even when they didn’t know what they wanted to study or may have been better candidates for occupations that don’t require a four-year degree, such as skilled trades, which our country has had a shortage of workers in for decades now and often provides stabler, higher-paying work than degrees can.
I distinctly remember a particular conversation I overheard between my high school science teacher and a student that serves as an example of this stigma. The teacher asked the student if she figured out what colleges she was going to apply to yet. She told him she didn’t feel college was right for her and was thinking of going to cosmetology school instead. He told her cosmetology school is for girls who are lost and she’d regret that decision one day—that she should aim higher.
But how many of us now look forward to those trips to the salon, when we can enjoy an hour of peace in our chaotic lives and leave feeling a little better about ourselves and a little more mentally well? It takes all kinds—including cosmetologists. And you know what? Many of them have their own thriving businesses, which means reaping the benefits of working for themselves, like flexibility and control over their schedules.
Growing up in a family of blue-collar men, and in a city that, while transformed economically from what it once was, still pays homage to the industrial roots that put it on the map, I’ve always taken offense to the idea that not attending a four-year college makes one lesser. We need people to repair the bridges we drive on, make sure heating, A/C, and water are running through our homes, put out fires, and grow our food as much as we need people to prescribe us pills, teach our children, represent us in court, and entertain us.
When I was a kid, I excelled at writing and other forms of art and knew I’d someday choose a vocation that involved the written word, but I also had a powerful inclination to join the military. Something inside me told me it was an experience I was supposed to have in this life. At my all-girl Catholic high school, saying your plan after graduation was to enlist in the service would have been preposterous. I can hear old Sister Karen’s voice now—she was the guidance counselor who handled college and career prep, and the only nun who was still a faculty member. Known for her shocking brashness, she’d probably have said something like, “Do you have a learning disability, or are you just ignorant? Stay in school! What’s a little girl like you going to do in the military anyway?”
I still felt so strongly about joining the service after graduating from college and landing a full-time copywriting gig that I went out and enlisted in the Air National Guard, and I’m glad I did. While pursuing a journalism degree taught me the fundamentals of being a writer and editor, my Air Force experience taught more about people and life. A lot of what I learned from the Air Force fueled my creative work and helped shape me into the person I believe I was meant to be. Experience can be as valuable as formal education—sometimes more.
I enlisted to fulfill a dream and a calling, but sometimes, I still think, damn, I wish I’d had an adult in my life with some perspective on all this when I was in high school so that I could have gotten the full financial benefits of enlisting—someone who’d have told me that if I went into the Guard before going to college, my tuition would be completely covered at a state school; I could attend school full-time while serving part-time and graduate without any student loans. I now offer this practical advice to any kid I meet who’s torn between college and the military.
Did anyone ever discourage you from following a specific life path? Looking back, do you think their advice was right for you? If you’d like to share, DM me, send an email, or leave a comment.
As many millennials would find, including the ones in my novel, college doesn’t guarantee you anything. At least half the people I know my age feel that college got them nothing but a big stinking pile of debt.
If you’re middle class, you’re most likely going to fund school with government-backed loans that must be paid back when you graduate. This is how protagonist Dani Moran pays the balance of her state university tuition after her partial academic scholarship is deducted since her parents aren’t able to help her financially, and because being middle-class limits her access to grants.
At the university, she’s surrounded by kids from wealthier upbringings who are attending school and traveling all summer long on their parents’ dimes, which she thinks they take for granted. Some of these kids will one day be faced with the harsh reality that the real world isn’t always free and easy. She observes students who wander between potential pathways, seeming to have bought into the idea that as long as you show up and get some kind of degree, a good job is going to land right in your lap when you graduate, not seeing that certain degrees don’t lead directly to career paths—in particular, liberal arts degrees. Liberal arts majors often have to use their creative thinking skills to apply their studies in meaningful, prosperous ways. In my own experience, I’ve found it helps to develop a sense of humor about the difficulty and uncertainty of the liberal arts track, and a lot of tenacity.
Dani has a couple friends who lament over having no real interest in what they went to school for and only getting the degrees they did out of social pressure. And she encounters others who perhaps didn’t care much about the main selling point of the propaganda. They went to college because our culture inflated the college experience into so many other things: a rite of passage into adulthood, a basic right, and the most fun social years of your life that you’ll forever regret letting pass you by.
Dani is forced to swallow the pill that she has nobody but herself to fund her dreams post-college. And, after various circumstances teach her the importance of being able to stand on her own two feet, she decides she doesn’t want to be dependent on someone else anyway.
A resourceful young woman, Dani uses her degree to land a job that, while not her dream, enables her to support herself while working towards her dream. And isn’t that the reality most of us writers are living?
I guess if I could pare all these ideas down into a short paragraph of a takeaway, a brief summary of what I intended to show the reader through the usage of this theme, it would be this: You don’t have to attend college to live a good life. There are many alternative pathways to fulfillment and financial success. Go if it really supports your goals, but know that even when it does, certain doors you thought it would open up for you may remain closed; you sometimes have to make your own opportunities.
Making my own opportunities is what I’m trying to do for myself now as an indie author. And so here I am, branching out into Substack, trying to network and learn and grow with all of you, hoping that, together, we can get closer to where we want to be. I look forward to delving into the ups and downs of the indie author journey in future posts.
Do you have any other comments or insights to share on this topic? I’d love to hear your perspective. DM me, send me an email at nightowl1471@gmail.com, or leave a public comment below for group discussion.
Until next time, friend. Cheers.
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