“How can they tell how good we are at math if all they do is check for final results?”
That’s what I thought. I didn’t say anything. Of course. My first college exam. I was scared shitless. The C I got was just enough to keep me in that state.
Filling numbers into ten boxes without any pertinence as to how you came up with them was the first thing that felt unfair about college, but far from the last.
There was the practice exam that was harder than the actual one, the professor who asked questions from yet-to-be-taken follow-up classes, and the credits I didn’t get graded because, well, my exchange school grade was too good. College is a bottomless pit of double standards.
Oh the times I yelled “bullshit!” and wanted to quit. But I never did. High school had prepared me too well. Sit still. Do your homework. Trust the system. Don’t ask questions. It’s such a perfectly designed pipeline, and the further you go, the more ridiculous the requests.
Submit this in a week, but we won’t return it to you for months. Answer 100 questions in 100 minutes, but we’ll only take one to tell you what’s wrong.
In my undergrad, I sucked it up because I didn’t know I had options. It took two years of freelance work to show me I did. But I still wasn’t done overriding my gut. I’ll soon finish grad school and boy, am I ready to let go of expectations. Traditional education is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m mad at the system. But I’m madder at myself. In the end, it was me. I allowed nodding along to infect my whole life. Even in private. Even when it didn’t matter. There was always a rule to follow, always a reason to second-guess myself.
For three years, I got up every weekday between 6 and 7 AM. No reason, just expectation. I’d sleep when I was done working, not when I was tired. Do laundry when the room was free, not when I needed it. Eat when everyone ate, not when I was hungry.
You know you’re a good dog when you follow the rules without anyone telling you what they are. Thanks for playing. Here’s your diploma.
There’s something to be said for discipline and self-direction. But they’ve only ever served me when following through on my gut.
After three decades of learning to live up to expectations, instinct has become hard to trust. I paid for this lesson in bombed exams, short nights, and extra post-lunch coffees. As I’m kicking off the unscheduled artist life, it’s about time it sinks in.
I may soon finish college, but I hope to graduate from overriding my gut.