Image via WikipediaThis will be a longer post than usual since it's been many weeks since the last one.The wear and tear of jumping into school - coping with performance anxiety and living in the hyper-kinetic mode with student and personal responsibilities - sapped my time and energy. More accurately, this blog became that "one more thing" that dropped off the edge of my consciousness, or at least, my "To Do" list.
Suffice to say, my education experience has not been joyful. Hate school. Love learning. That's a post for another day, however.
What I want to spill are some thoughts and feelings about the value and cost of education. Last night at class, some students were discussing the loans from their first college go-rounds. Barely into their 30s, they are saddled with $30,000 - $45,000 debts. Like many Americans, they lost their jobs. Yet, here they are - courageously putting in long hours for no pay, hoping that opening textbooks opens the door to a second career, a secure livelihood in the fastest growing industry in America - healthcare.
For these students, and myself, each exam is a significant marker, one parameter to help us measure much more than what's retained from instruction. Last night's exam had most of us riled up. It was hard. Plain hard. No matter how much we studied, the material was overwhelming, perceived as a jumble of confusing details and terminology about cellular processes. Two hours before the exam, I knew my grade. I think we all did. As we awaited our fears to be confirmed, we obsessed. Is this education placing us any closer to jobs? Are our grades good indicators of whether we have the aptitude to work in health care? Can we make it over prerequisite hurdles to the core health sciences curricula? Will that be easier or harder than this? Someone piped up that the biology course is designed to shake out who's serious and who's not, who can hack the material and who can't. Most likely, that is true, whether intentional or not.
One student, echoing the group's apprehension and discouragement, remarked that he was considering going back to work in Newport News. Grumman just secured a $25 million defense contract for nuclear submarine maintenance.
"Every day, I ask, 'Why put myself through this stress'," he said. "Even my kids are better at this science stuff. So why am I wasting time when I could be making money instead of piling up debt and being grumpy?"
Heads nodded. It's a challenge to focus on faraway goals. Especially, with bills to be paid.
A union wage is enticing. Meanwhile, the shipbuilding industry in China, for one, is growing. Here in the U.S., nursing and most health care industry work can't be exported. What's more, the demand for nurses is expected to continue growing for the next decade. Career choices can be a crap shoot. If your timing is off, the promising, high-demand industry can be in a slump when you graduate or not long afterward. Maybe you catch it just right, maybe you don't. These kids know that.
Thanks to the California State University system's affordable tuition, I never had to take out a student loan. Full-time tuition was around $100 per semester. Cal State tuition has risen to 50 times what I paid 35 years ago. Wages sure haven't increased that much. Despite a valiant attempt to turn an internship into a job (they couldn't get the money to hire me), I graduated jobless with no backup. Having rent and living expenses to bear was hard enough without a loan, which to me, seems like an 800-lb screeching monkey. I worked two or three jobs at a time for four years until I got a foot in the door somewhere. Can't imagine jobless, burdened with debt and a bleak economic picture. Makes me feel differently at what I saw as tough luck back then.
CSU students have been protesting tuition hikes. I feel for them, yet I think, "What's the difference?" How many will get jobs upon graduation and how many will be consistently gainfully employed? I got my college education at low cost. By age 30, I was laid off. There went my education reimbursement for grad school. I had no debt. By cashing in my 401K, my husband and I were able to buy a home. We struggled for a few years, had a few good years and then struggled again. I expect the economy to run a similar course of ups and downs the rest of my life. So, those kids can protest the tuition now, but what good would a reduction do in the long run? There's a price to be paid for everything and there are no guarantees.
That piece of paper, my college diploma, has unlocked the door to most of the jobs I've held and has, in one way or another, been instrumental to the work I've done. Coming from a working-class family, my mother was proud of me going to college. Nonetheless, I hated, absolutely hated, college the first time around. It's no better this time. That said, one thing I know is that getting the piece of paper is not a waste of time, although it sometimes feels that way.
The median grade on last night's biology exam was a high D. And there I was, sitting squarely on the median. I did some figuring. If the next 2 exams are not as horrid, and my lab book is complete, I can end up with a C, possibly, a B. An instructor from another class (one in which I'm 3 points away from a perfect overall score) encouraged me to look at my education experience realistically and ease up on the perfectionist tendencies. She said is not necessary to get As in all classes.
Sigh.
For the next 7 weeks, can I de-stress and accept less than stellar marks rather than walk away in disappointment?
