Blog 3: You cant hurry school, no you just have to wait...

Everybody has a love/hate relationship somewhere in their life. Maybe yours is with your mother, your boss, your girlfriend or your professor. Mine has always been with school.

In high school, there were two points to note on each of my report cards: An average of 35 absences in each class, each semester, (no exaggeration) and a GPA of 3.5 or above. I was always good at school -- I just hated being there.

My senior year, I received acceptance letters to two UCs and three CSUs. Most I threw in the trash, unopened. I had spent 12 years of my life being told what to do, and I wasn’t quite ready for another round of instructions. So I took some time off.

After working and traveling for a year, I started at UC Santa Cruz but quickly decided that college wasn’t for me.

Or wait. Was it?

To be sure, I enrolled at CSU Northridge the following fall, completing a year's worth of credits before deciding I REALLY didn’t want to be in college, and instead began a short-lived career in marketing. For a year, I was content. I was working 40 hour weeks in an office, occasionally jetting off for a business convention here or a trade show there.

Until this past June when I watched a friend graduate from UC Santa Cruz, and I was struck with an overwhelming sense of longing. I felt like a barren woman looking at a baby. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be in school. Not because everyone said I should, or because I wanted to make more money but because I simply wanted to be there. To sit in a lecture hall, to take notes, to make coffee runs to the bookstore. I missed the student life.

And now, nine months later, here I am, concocting blogs for my news writing class.

I know many students who have taken paths similar to mine- an on-and-off relationship with school that has led them from school to work, to work to school. Sometimes, like me, they return to complete their program of study. Many others do not.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.4 million students enrolled in colleges nationwide in 2009. But don’t be fooled by the numbers or the guidance counselors because nearly half of those students will not obtain a degree. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 58 percent of first-time freshman enrolled in a four-year university program in 2000-01 completed their degree within six years.

What is going on? Why do so many students attend college only to drop out? Some percentage may be attributed to economic hardship or unforeseen life changes, like having a child or losing a parent. But I think the larger problem is that many students go to college before they even belong there.

How enthusiastic are you about having to do something you don’t actually want to? Probably not so much. Yet so many high school seniors head off to college because they are told, by society, or teachers, or their parents, that it’s just “what you do.”

It’s rash. It’s reckless. College is a major life decision. Would you comply that easily if you were choosing a mate, or deciding to have kids? My point is, there is no set time a person will be ready for college. The time isn’t right just because you’re 18, or because you’re graduating from high school. Sometimes, it's never right. And that’s perfectly fine.

Taking two years off of school made an impact in the life as well as the academic career of DVC student Hayley Willer who said, “The time away from school was the right choice for me. It allowed me to grow from the high school scene and develop a personality, and I appreciate education more now.”

I encourage students to take time off to decide who they are and what they want before they go to college. I reckon we’d see that drop-out rate lower dramatically if they did. I personally needed the time to mature and reflect before returning to school. Now I am here by choice. Happily might I add.