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Graduation Day

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Thers at Whiskey Fire has a moving post about why he loves graduation day:

I teach at a community college. At commencement I get to watch students walk across the platform and pick up diplomas who have gone through some pretty tremendous shit. Working class people who have been told all their lives they’re stupid, only to find out they aren’t. Guys who got laid off from a manufacturing gig who learned how to program a computer. Divorced housewives who can write like nightingales sing but who were never encouraged to reach out for their intellectual potential, because our society is still burdened with idiotic sexism. Kids who were bright enough not to totally hock their futures for the debt you need for a 4 year degree and a chance at a decent life, wisely cutting their future debt burden almost in half.

Yeah, lots of people who go out for CCs don’t make it, for a lot of reasons. And if they just can’t cut it, I’ll fail them. But most of them are just thirsty as hell for something more than the crap they’re usually watered with. Amazing people. They want to learn so goddamn bad.

8 thoughts on Graduation Day

  2. I have to credit my local Community College for giving me back the interest in learning I lost while in high school. Seriously.

    I was so burned out by my high school experience I was on the edge of chucking it all up and being a janitor. I took some CC classes, met some really interesting teachers, learned some cool things and decided to get my degree.

    I eventually got my BS in Computer Science and never looked back…

  3. I have to say, the full-time professors at my CC were more intellectually challenging and pushed us much harder than the professors at my 4-year college could ever dream of. Like MikeEss, I also had a dreadful high school experience, and thankfully I enrolled in CC and was reminded by just how bright I actually am… something that I’ve been told my entire life, but high school just seemed intent to stamp out of me.

  4. Count me in as a CC fan. I could never have done as well in chemistry, physics, Soils and Ag Econ at the 4 year university. Smaller classes, more accessible professors and actual professors teaching (rather than TAs) made a huge difference.

    Because it was a small school and I was moderately intelligent, they were able to offer me a better scholarship package than any of the 4 year universities. And because I performed well, I got better scholarships from the university than I was offered straight out of high school.

    I was also exposed to a greater range of students than at the 4 year university. From single moms to workers having to retrain, I got a chance to see other lives and get an idea of how difficult it could be to go to college and have a life. (Although the 4 year university was better at exposing me to other cultures and walks of life.)

    I did pay for it when I went to the 4 year university, though. My department resented transfer students and made our lives hell. It didn’t help that I was female in a male field. They made it clear that they thought I was less committed and basically more “trashy” than the students who started as freshman. They told me that transfer students didn’t support the alumni association as well. I told them it was a self-fulfilling prophesy and they would never get a dime from me (for multiple reasons, not just this).

  5. I love graduation day too. Every time I walk past a person in a cap and gown, I get to imagine their lives just for a second. I hope one day I will be there as well.

  7. I’m definitely a supporter of community colleges. I only took a few classes as a high school student, but I’ve known and worked with many people for whom community college made a major difference. In the few instances in which I encountered community college students as a teacher, I’ve found them to be generally more engaged with the class and they tend to have a better understanding of their responsibilities as students than many of the four-year college students I’m teaching now.

    Kids who were bright enough not to totally hock their futures for the debt you need for a 4 year degree and a chance at a decent life, wisely cutting their future debt burden almost in half.

    If I may wander a bit, I can’t stress this lesson enough. I probably don’t need to tell anyone here about this, but it’s hard to see what a burden debt becomes when you’re just starting a new path in your education, and you may decide to just deal with it when you’re done.

    To a degree, that’s often necessary. I, however, was not smart enough to really think about the debt I would incur during the past several years. I was lucky enough to have no debt from my undergraduate years, but I made the decision to go to graduate school, it didn’t work out as I thought it would, and now I’ve got a debt that’s so high as to be embarrassing. I’ll be paying it until I die.

    So, I’m a cautionary tale. If you can find yourself doing something that makes you happy and you don’t need to go into debt (or at least very much debt), then do it. And if you can do what you like without going to graduate school, then just don’t go.

    (Sorry for the diversion into Me Land. I had to vent.)

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