I’m really tired of reading pointless and fluffy advice columns, so here’s a lot of honesty coming your way in exchange for a few minutes of your time.
While Sinclair has a wide range of learners, my experience here comes as a student who studied here in his early twenties.
These were my biggest issues through college:
Learning how colleges operate.
I had no one assisting me when I finally got enrolled at Sinclair. I went through several advisors, I even took a course I didn’t have to through their advice.
You have to take charge and invest yourself fully, leaving it up to others allows for too much room for error.
The ideal situation for most Sinclair students would be to find Sinclair alumni that have transferred successfully and obtained their degrees. They’ll know the ins and outs of the college system.
I don’t suggest attending without emergency money in the bank.
I was paying my FACTS payment plan month to month while living paycheck to paycheck and eating rarely, usually unable to purchase books.
You have to have a plan for when life turns and a means for you to take that turn. Otherwise, you’ll end up more prone to this next point.
Identity drain from bureaucracy
Every policy seems to be made for some created average of all our students which none of us actually are.
The problem with generalizing everyone is that when you undergo courses made for people that do not exist, you adopt the traits of the manufactured average.
We should be shooting for greatness, but greatness is harder to deal with and less immediately lucrative–as well as more labor intensive.
Your college experience is yours. It is about you. Don’t lose yourself just because it’s more profitable to try and fit you into the average mold.
Don’t buy into the “passing” mentality.
Many students become detached from their fields of study and burn out. Unfortunately, you will encounter professors whose goals are to have students pass, not to have students succeed.
We’re still looking at our professors to lead in the classroom. Being tenured is no excuse to promote that ideology.
Navigate around presumptions about identity and background
While we’re not Berkeley or the other big names for edgy social policy schools, we are still a college.
An entire list of ideas usually goes through educators and classmates minds when they hear your age or race or political party.
This whole attempt to weight peoples value on their demographic percentages adds another distracting layer to trying to obtain an education for yourself.
No matter how someone treats you, stay focused and know you’re doing it for you.
Inspire resilience
Although it is literally in some of our textbooks that you are not to say that anymore, it needs to be said.
If you feel like the odds are against you, what will help you more: getting coddled or getting serious? Are the odds being stacked an excuse to not let yourself get where you want?
Be resilient. You likely do not have time to stop and lick your wounds too much, the rest of the world is turning.
You do not give up when the world tells you it will be hard. That tells people in your situation that it’s okay to give up.
You work harder and you stay focused. You are the best chance you have in life. Own everything you do. You are the only one that can do the work.
Live for the life you want, don’t just dress for the job you want
Dressing isn’t enough. It’s a byproduct of you fully living the pathway to your goals in life. Invest in yourself, you are worth it.
You will feel fulfilled when you are mentally matching up with the ideas you are making realize in the world around you.
Don’t buy vague idealism as an impressionable youth
The idea that the reward for college is so far off and mystical and that you “just have to get through all this” doesn’t help our community.
The reward for taking classes in which the content and instruction is edifying should be advertised as immediate.
While you’re getting closer to your larger goals, you’re changing and growing. That’s the immediate reward, why does it go so understated?
I could see myself grow at the Clarion in a constructive environment where learning was encouraged and active. The goal was to become who you wanted to be, not vaguely, maybe, to simply continue my education.
Get competitive, the rest of the world outside already is
This generated, educational lul just breeds out competitiveness.
That actually disadvantages students. Many other educational institutes, especially internationally, do not dabble in this naivety.
Our students deserve an educational environment that encourages competitiveness. We deserve to be able to compete with the Wright State and University of Dayton students.
And lastly, embody Rupaul’s quote
“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else.”
Barton Kleen
Contributing Writer