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opinion
Came
for school, left with friends
Five years ago, faced with another identical day at the same
monotonous job, I sat and pondered my future.
I needed a new direction in life.
But scanning the classifieds, every ad for a better job had
at the bottom, "degree required."
So I set about getting one of those magical parchments with
which my earning power was promised to double.
I enrolled in the comfortable confines of Golden Waste College
(nee Golden West), where I re-entered the world of higher
education.
That wasn't my first venture in the world of academia, having
spent three disastrous semesters at Long Beach City College
right after high school.
School wasn't a priority then, as evidenced by my 0.03 GPA
(top that!).
But this time, since I wanted to be there rather than feeling
that I had to be there, school was a much more enjoyable experience.
That and the fact that being at a junior college made me feel
like a genius. Seriously, it's like "Wheel of Fortune"
in there.
No, seriously, I had one teacher ask us to open our requisite
$60 textbook to the dedications page to see his name among
those thanked. Gee, did you get a kickback?
Those five semesters passed without incident but I felt ill
prepared for the call-up to the majors.
Once I got to Cal State Long Beach, it wasn't the quantum
leap I had expected.
Well, I'm not sure exactly what I expected, since most of
my impressions of what college was supposed to be like came
from images from the media.
What I found was teachers concerned with how, and who, you
were; fellow students for whom learning was a collaborative,
not competitive experience; and this really cheerful guy who
was always walking around shaking hands and asking how you
were doing. Saw a lot of him.
Not exactly "Animal House," but I still think I'm
better for having come here.
So what did we get with our Cal State education?
Well, for half the cost of a UC, we got 90 percent of the
education with half of the pretension but none of the Nobelites,
which doesn't matter much anyway, since we'd likely have never
seen any of them.
Oh, and we were taught by actual teachers, rather than grad
students and teacher's aides.
But more than anything else, what I'll take away from this
place is the friends I've made.
Being exiled here in the dusty SSPA dungeon (you call it basement,
we call it dungeon) for up to 12 hours a day, four days a
week, in production of this gem we call the DFN, sometimes
the only reason to come in was the other students.
Without so much as an "attaboy" from our mentors
and nothing but complaints from the readership, we came to
trust and appreciate only each other.
For better or worse, this created a bit of insularity that
made us a family, albeit very dysfunctional (and occasionally
incestuous).
So, to my friends and colleagues who made this whole adventure
tolerable (and sometimes even fun), I thank you and hope our
connection doesn't end with a walk across a stage this week.
Honestly though, if you want a self-esteem boost, enroll in
a general ed class at a junior college. It feels like cheating
on an IQ test.
Phil Witte is a journalism graduate from Cal State Long Beach.
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Phil Witte
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