I genuinely did enjoy my college experience and am very grateful for it. I do wonder, though, what my life could have been like if I never went to college. When I have these thoughts, I often think back to Mike Rowe and what his opinion was about going to college.
Mike Rowe would often say that college was not the answer to everything. It is possible to be successful and live a good life without a college degree. In his show Dirty Jobs and Returning The Favor, the audience often sees different types of working class Americans who led arduous lives and have done good deeds.
It is these kinds of people that have not gone to college and have forged their own lives with their hard work. They are living good lives.
In high school, I remember there was a lot of encouragement for students to go to the college of their dreams. Almost everyone posted what schools they were accepted to and how excited they were to go to the place of their dreams.
In my point of view, I did not have a college that I really wanted to attend. I applied to colleges because my siblings were also applying. It was a competitive urge to get out the door and move onto the next chapter. After quick tours of the colleges, I decided on one that just seemed refreshing and not far away from my home.
I was just along for the ride while I attended my college. I switched majors a couple of times but only because I thought the credentials fit the other major and would help me graduate on time. There were moments where I felt like I was drifting along the current and just getting things done just because I did not know what else to do.
Looking back now, I believe getting the experience of a minimal wage job was something that would have given me a proper kick in the shorts to get out there and see what the kind of world I inhabited and what different people were like.
Despite this differential thinking and wistfulness, I am not in a great deal of debt from college. Going to college has forged a part of my future that will assist me wherever I will go and how I will conduct my life. What really matters is what we do with the time given to us.
