Dear ________

In a lot of ways I ran my high school. I starred in many of the major productions and floated effortlessly between friend groups, and as a result was known by teachers and strangers alike in a building of close to 4500 students and faculty members, a feat accomplished by only a few others, even winning class clown my senior year. I was not always loved by my coach or some of my teachers, but I left my mark on them because I spoke my mind and fought for what I believe in. I was told that my grades, my extracurriculars, and my personality would get me far, certainly into whatever college I wanted, and it did, but they never really tell you that sometimes shitty things happen to people, even if they seem to have been dealt a good hand. Despite getting into 7/8 colleges, only one of these schools gave me money. Some people are comfortable taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that will control your life forever, but I could not with a clear conscience do so. I turned away a program pursuing environmental science in London and going away to my dream school like I had always wanted, to instead stay home and try and pretend that, despite attending an almost strictly business school, I can still get a good enough education in the natural sciences to one day pursue a real job in my field.

It's easy to feel like everything is falling apart around you in my situation. High schoolers everywhere are told to set themselves up to get into their perfect school and enjoy the college experience, making friends, exploring interests, live away from home if that's what they choose, and purse an immersive education in the field they are most interested in, but they are never told what to do when all of that can't happen. They are never told how to proceed once they realize that high school may very well be the best four years of their lives. Disappointment after disappointment has been hurdled my way and it's getting really hard to keep a smile on my face when asked "so how's school?"

Over and over again I'm told to "take action" and "make college what you want it to be", but let me explain to you why these statements make me feel even more frustrated and hopeless. I am an Ad Hoc Environmental Science major, which means that my school does not offer my major and it is up to me to combine two different departments within my school--in my case Natural Sciences and Anthropology--to create my own major. The issue with this is that attending a business school it can be very hard find relevant courses, even with this extra flexibility. For example: I had to fight my way into the ONLY 3000 level environmental science course which only had eight seats, not eight remaining seats, just the initial eight seats. Or this past semester, where I took the ONLY environmentally related class from 6-9 at night, knowing that that would mean I wouldn't even get home until close to 11 because I, unlike many of you who have told me to "just deal with it", do not dorm and have to commute back and forth every day. But, ok, maybe you don't think this is proactive enough? There must be other ways to take classed you like, right? That's what I thought too.

There is a system in place to take classes at other colleges if a course you are interested in isn't offered at your home school. For me, this class was Russian. I desperately, more than anything else, wanted to take Russian. I am extremely interested in it as a language and in New York City where I live, it could be really helpful as well. Many colleges in the area offer the course so all I had to do was find an equivalent course at another school. This did not fare so easily. The course Russian 1 at my school is equivalent to Russian 1&2 at some schools and Russian 2 in other schools. Only schools whose equivalencies were Russian 2 were offering the course this semester but the thing is, I can't take Russian 2 until I take Russian 1. If this seems confusing to you, trust me, it was for me as well. When I went to the department office to sort it out where I was told there was a mistake; "we never offered Russian here, so technically there are NO equivalent courses, so you can't take it." Well, another dream bites the dust.

I've tried to find a place in this school to call my own. I have tried to continue the four great years I had in high school like every friend, parent, college advisor, and teacher told me I could. I have had friends torn from me as liberal arts and sciences schedules don't tend to match up with business schedules and I never get to see them. I have had courses offered and then taken way, worse than never being offered at all. I have tried to meet like minded people at Eco Club, which ordered 10 Subway footlongs and then threw them away when no one ate them, instead of donating them or some FAR more environmentally friendly way of handling them. I have considered auditioning for musicals, theater productions, or acapella groups, only to have my late night classes during the audition hours, to be deterred by the thought of not getting home until 3 am when rehearsals get long, or to have my job to pay for my books and monthly MetroCard conflict with scheduled practices.

I have tried and tried and tried and, frankly, I'm tired of being told to "stop complaining and try taking action." I don't need you to feel sorry when I complain because even having the opportunity to attend college is still a position of privilege, and I don't even need you to pretend you understand when you listen to me between going to a frat party or going to your on-campus internship that your school's career center set you up with. I just want you to let me complain. I spend every day filtering through posts on social media of all my college aged friends making the best years of their young adulthood, making mistakes and friends and memories, and my high school aged friends get into schools of their dreams with full scholarships and minds full of dreams and goals that they are already more equipped to achieve than myself. I feel frustrated and helpless enough, the last thing I need to hear from you is to stop complaining, because I don't now how. So, joke's on you! This whole letter was a complaint, and I don't feel the least bit sorry.

Sincerely,

The Kvetch