There’s Nothing Wrong with Us: The Pervasive Push to Patch People Without Degrees
“What would you have done differently?” someone asked while I was pondering on the next question during an interview.
I had been out of college for the better part of a decade and was speaking to someone about my life experience.
“I would have taken the year off after graduating high school like I was going to… I would have traveled like I wanted with the money I made over the summer to see more of the world and figure out what I wanted to do with my life,” I replied.
The person looked… stumped.
They expected me to say, “I would have taken out the huge college loan shoved in front of me during my junior year when my scholarship money ran out.”
When asked about why I didn’t, I said that was probably one of the smartest moves I made as a young adult despite pressure from older ones to do so and them literally calling me dumb and saying that I would end up living in a cardboard box and they wasted their time on me.
The silence after leaving college before graduating was deafening.
I wanted to connect to people, talk about some plans I had, and work towards a solution and pivot.
