Junior Year: Finished!

Sorry for the break, guys. It ended up being a little more than 2 weeks. Fortunately, I was able to finish all my final papers/exams, and  I passed all my classes. (although one of my classes is still mysteriously missing a letter grade even though the deadline for grades is past due... I guess I'll have to email the registrar about that...)

I can't believe I'm already finished with my junior year of college. Time has gone by so fast; I still feel like I just started this whole college thing, and now I'm already a senior. By next year, I'll be done with school. Forever. I can't even remember a time when I wasn't  in school; it's going to be so weird not running on an academic calendar and having to live like a normal person.

Don't get me wrong- I think it'll be super nice to do my work during the day and not have any more 10 page academic papers burning through every waking (and sometimes sleeping) minute of my life; I just don't feel ready to not be in school yet. Even though it's summer, I still have this feeling like I should be going back up to school and working on stuff for classes tomorrow. It's going to be weird when that cycle just stops. Or when I don't have an entire week of vacation to relax and spend time with my family during the holidays.

And maybe I won't need all of that; especially since I'll be able to reclaim my nights and weekends for myself once I graduate. But the only thing I can picture is daily 9-5 schoolwork for the rest of my life without any breaks. And that seems absolutely maddening to me. I'm sure it's not like that... if it were, I feel like everyone would just give up on life by the time they hit 30. There is just no time in my life where I've ever really experienced life outside of the educational system. I have no real point of reference for figuring out the real world, and admittedly, all that unknown kinda freaks me out; no one ever really talks about that transition and what it was like.

I'm sure I'll be fine- everyone always tells me that it's nothing when you're ready for it. And believe me, I'm more than ready to be done with school. I just wonder sometimes if I'm really prepared to suddenly shift the way I've been living my life for the past 15/16 years.

Adults Know How to Manage Conflict (usually)

Sorry guys, it’s been a while since I’ve written last. Last week was spring break, and other than sewing a couple of dresses and visiting a college with my sister, nothing exciting really happened anyway.

 (insert shameless bragging about my sewing skills here)

But this week was the workshop for the intentional housing opportunity that I talked about in my last post. The workshop allows us to meet some of our potential future housemates and gives the mentors the opportunity to observe and get to know us a bit better. All of this factors into our housing placement for the semester, which we’ll find out in a few weeks.

I’m really excited to enter into the program. Everyone at the workshop seemed so friendly and great, and I think it’s a really good group of people participating this year; I’d be happy to have any of them as housemates.  We participated in a few different sessions- in one of them we had to make up the rules for our own card game and in another session we made a collage representing what community means to us.

And then there was the session on conflict.

…Let’s just say that’s not where my strengths lie.

Basically, we were given a scenario where we had to confront a hypothetical housemate about something like the mess they were leaving in the house, etc.  When I was called to speak up, I basically beat around the bush until someone else had to cut me off in order to get to the point that I was avoiding. If it were a test, I definitely would not be pleased with my performance.

I was really surprised by how passive my words were. Instead of saying “your mess makes us all uncomfortable and you need to respect us and this community by cleaning them up” I said things like “there are a lot of dirty dishes everywhere” and “everyone needs to share responsibility in doing the dishes”, which was a confusing and ridiculously passive way to communicate my point.

Which is ironic, because all night I was talking about being a communications major and about how clear communication is important to me.

Fail.

I don’t know why I couldn’t say it directly. I like to think I’m pretty honest and clear when I talk to people, but looking back, I respond to conflict this way pretty frequently. I don’t know if my response is motivated by a desire not to hurt people’s feelings, or a desire not to be the bad guy, or if I just think people won’t like me if I call them out when I have a problem. Maybe I’d rather live uncomfortably than upset someone else. Ugh, those are all terrible rationalizations, aren’t they?

Being honest and open means also being honest and open when you have a problem with someone else’s actions. And I know that being direct is really the more truthful way to solve problems and that people appreciate and respect others who assert themselves. I guess that’s a mindset that I need to embrace more fully.

Some Things to Look Forward to

I got quite a bit of good news this week (in addition to the good news that it’s FINALLY spring break!). First of all, I have the opportunity to interview for a marketing/PR internship this summer, which would be a great opportunity for me to gain experience and learn what kind of PR environment I eventually want to work in. I’m really excited about it; I’ve been waiting for a while to go out and see what it’ll be like to work in my career field, especially since I’ll be graduating and starting to look for a real job next summer. (ugh I do NOT want to think about that…)

But the big news I received this week is that I was accepted into an intentional housing program at my school. The basics of this program are that I go out into the city of Grand Rapids and live in a house with other upperclassmen and a resident mentor associated with my school. We make a commitment to spend time with each other and time with the people of our neighborhood. Each house (there are 5 total) hosts community events and commits to a certain number of hours volunteering and working to improve and support the community it’s located in.

I’m super excited to be able to really plug into the city of Grand Rapids and invest in the people around me. Volunteer work has always been something that’s brought me so much joy; being able to connect with people different than you and commit to bettering someone outside of yourself is a truly awesome 

experience. I love every minute of it.

I’m excited to get to know the city better too. I’ve lived my whole life less than two hours south of Grand Rapids, and I’ve actually lived within the city for the past 3 years, but I still feel like I don’t really know Grand Rapids very well. Since I’ll most likely find myself in an urban environment for my future career, it’s possible that I might end up staying here. If I do, then it’s important that I know the city where I’ll be living, and connecting to a neighborhood through this program gives me such a great opportunity to do so.

 Downtown Grand Rapids

I’m just really excited about the whole thing. And hey, after the past few weeks, I could use some good news.

Spring Break Can't Come Soon Enough

Sometimes, I really wonder about college. Was it really a good choice for me to spend four years and $100,000 on a Strategic Communications major and Writing minor in hopes of gaining a good career within the next two years? Will this set me up for a fulfilling and happy life? I mean, I can see why it's important for an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer to get a degree- their careers are rooted in objective facts and rules, and if you don't learn all of these rules you won't be able to function well in these careers.

In contrast, skill sets required of English and Strategic Communications majors are different. Sure, there are rules to follow, but everything's so subjective; learning to write and communicate effectively is really more of a process of trial and error rather than something you pick up in a lecture. With regards to skill development in my career field, sometimes I feel like college stifles my creativity and discourages me from taking risks more than it helps me develop my own unique voice.

If I wanted to learn how to flourish in my career, wouldn't a trade school of some kind be much better suited to that? Isn't practice and experience more highly valued than a degree? At least then I wouldn't be so hungry, frustrated and sleep deprived. It'd probably be less expensive and I'd have a lot less on my plate.

But at the same time, there's a lot that I've gained from college. I've learned from a ton of different perspectives, I feel more informed and well-rounded as a person, and I have more empathy and understanding for people different than me.

Maybe we're going about this whole college thing in the wrong way. We're so caught up in grades, credits and career prep, that we can't stop to appreciate all the opportunities there are to actually gain knowledge here. For example, I would love to pick up a minor in Gender Studies and bump Writing up to a major, but I can't because those degrees wouldn't be "marketable" to employers. Does anyone else feel like there's something wrong with that?

I can't help but feel like I'm missing so many opportunities here sometimes. Both opportunities to go out and actually do what professors talk about doing, and opportunities to expand my perspective and learn about things that I'm ignorant about.

Sometimes I kind of feel like going to school for a career robs me of both.