Colleges? Plural?! Lookit you, moneybags!

I only went to one, and it was frankly what you’d call… not quite on the level. A scam, bluntly. I’ve been saying Degree Mill for years, but that may not be accurate. (Is it still a Degree Mill if the money wasn’t your own?) I worked for my degree as I took out loan after loan; it was just predatory, overpriced, unaccredited, and full of shady practices.

And if you were real unlucky, you had teachers that really shouldn’t have been in those positions. My field of study had a decent and caring staff compared to the other departments. I’ve witnessed accessibility needs being ignored, abuse toward students, and alarming incompetence that prepared no one for how the industries actually worked. I legitimately hope the Fashion Design students gets their pound of flesh for what they had to go through.

…And this was a for-profit school, so all of this is hardly a surprise in retrospect.

But the kicker? Didn’t help that no employer in the field post-graduation took it seriously. Once I got out, I had this stigma that I couldn’t shake off due to where I went. Despite my portfolio (which won an award!) I was perhaps just not cut out for what the industry required. If I was in a different environment I would have figured that out a lot sooner and gracefully pivoted. I can admit that now.

The Wal-Mart cashier tried to warn me. I excitedly told them I was starting in a few months, and all I could remember that whatever they said was pretty negative (and the fact that their nails were purple-glittery and gorgeous). I left the store with the wind sucked out of my sails, for sure. But still, I didn’t really listen, because going to college was the thing we were all supposed to do. And this school, I felt like, would get me out into the real world faster after focusing on only what I wanted to study.

(And a note here– at least at the one I attended, the school inflated their post-employment rate by a metric fuckton. When you’re counting unrelated jobs like cashier and warehouse worker as "gainful employment" those numbers start to look really good.)

Yes, I know. The people I met on this journey and all of that. Love them. But that’s not enough to be content with this particular choice. It’s why I hate to admit that attending this school was one of my biggest regrets, and this post is the longest I’ve talked about it toward people that Have Not Been There. I don’t feel great about it, point-blank, and I feel worse that I don’t feel great about it.

It’s understandable that this part of my life has the most amount of "What Ifs." Maybe I would’ve had a more well-rounded life if I went to State Bird University and broke out of my (sheltered) shell. I could’ve gone to an HBCU for the cultural health my elementary-middle-high school sorely lacked. I could have had THE typical experience of living in a walkable self-contained ecosystem with brick, glass, and as some jerkass put it, "four more years of coddling." And I could have grown beyond what I thought would make me money the fastest while also be something I loved. There could have a different path forged with different passions.

Or is it? Or is it?

If there’s Gifted Kid Burnout, what’s this version? Degree Mill Scammed Burnout? I was so proud to be the first of our immediate family to go to college. Now, not so much. I feel like I have nothing to show for it.