College Dreams

The Youth by MGMT

The obvious difference between college students and other students, besides homework load, maturity level, and age: coffee

In fifth grade, the ten mathematical problems assigned nightly for homework seemed unreasonable and tyrannical of my teacher. How was I supposed to complete this, my coloring sheets of a shark’s anatomy, AND draw a picture of Robert E. Lee for the next day? It seemed like too much. That morning, our teacher, Mrs. Knouse, scoffed at our misfortunes, claiming that she had spent entire days and nights doing homework that we could not even fathom. I was horrified; where was this awful place that bestowed upon the human more homework than the mind could imagine? She answered us with a sly grin: college.

Boy Meets World gave me unrealistic expectations about college.  I blame you, Cory!

The news that college was one of the most difficult tasks of a person’s life was startling to me. I had always imagined it as a lax and easy doorway into the adult world. “These self-contained worlds delighted those who saw in them a life of ease combined with that of the mind; in the words of Henry James it offered a ‘charmed seclusion’.” (X636) Sure, I had known that there would be homework, but certain movies on the Disney Channel, a television show titled “Boy Meets World”, and books such as the Fear Street series gave me expectations about college that included entire afternoons free, endless nights of parties, and the kind of soft “glamour” that exudes from a college student; that of a mature and independent individual. When I lived in Oxford, Mississippi, I passed by the university daily and could hear the light banter of students on their way to classes. “Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical, calling to him, ‘We are happy here!’ (Hardy 21)

I wanted to believe in the relaxed lifestyle of a college student, but everything was beginning to change about my perception: the homework load only seemed to rise, while the fun load only fell. Of course as I grew older, my dreams of what I wanted from my college changed: I wanted exciting people, interesting conversations, and most of all, an education that was wholly mine, not to be decided by a counselor or high school curriculum.

By the time I started my senior year in high school, I was more than ready to embark upon my college experience. I, much like Jude, exclaimed, “How ugly it is here!” (Hardy 13) and began to view my high school with more and more disdain. I had grown tired of the people by whom I was surrounded, disdainful of the petulant whines of my classmates, and bored with the cement coursework of my classes. I sought a higher level of being, a more exciting way to see the world. I saw “the university as ‘the tree of knowledge’ and ‘the paradise of the learned’.” (X638) What my college dream consisted of was emerging a whole and erudite individual, with the ability to succeed in whatever field I chose for myself, while having forged relationships that would hopefully last a lifetime.

"It is a city of light," he said to himself. (Hardy 23)

UT was not my first choice, nor my second choice. In fact, it was my last choice, but I suppose that because Columbia and Berkeley rebuffed my advances, I had to settle (I use the word settle loosely, because I am now realizing that my education here is anything BUT something I had merely to “settle” for.) for Plan II, a then mysterious entity. My path is as broad as the coursework I’m exploring, and although this is not exactly for what I first planned, I now realize that it is very close to what I had dreamed of my college education would be.

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The Youth by MGMT

This is a call to arms
to live and love and sleep
together

We could flood the streets
with love or light or heat
whatever

Lock the parents out
cut a rug
twist and shout wave your hands
make it rain the stars will rise again

The youth is starting to change,
are you starting to change?
are you
together?

In a couple of years, tides have turned from
boos to cheers and in spite of
the weather, we can learn to make it
together

The youth is starting to change,
are you starting to change?
are you
together?