About a year ago, I was talking to a much older woman about being in college. Although I had just met her about a half hour prior, she began to lecture me about how I needed to get a job in order to pay for college on my own. I was shocked: I had a job, but I only received enough money for me to pay for some groceries and maybe to occasionally go out to eat. I was doing fine, because I receive a meal plan, but it seems that this woman didn't understand that I couldn't simply "get a job" so that all of my college woes would be fixed. I have a feeling that there are a lot of people out there who don't know what it's like to be a college student in today's society, so here are a few things that we young adults go through.
First, we have a full schedule. We're LUCKY if we're only taking four classes, because in addition to class, we have clubs, meetings, and homework on top of homework. Often times, I find myself waking up at 8:30am and not getting to actually lay down in bed until 1am because my schedule has been packed for the entire day. It's a stressful day in itself, and not being able to sleep makes it ten times worse.
Next, college simply costs more. There have been numerous studies that have shown that it was easy for a college student to pay for their entire tuition for the year by simply working full time in the summer. Nowadays, though, students are lucky if they can use those wages to pay for a quarter of their college tuition. No matter how much we work, it's not like the money we make will do much to help.
There's a thing called unpaid internships. In order for us to be able to get jobs after we graduate, we have to have experience in what we want to do - and that experience means we need internships. Not only is applying for them a stress in itself, but we also are lucky if we get an internship that will actually pay us. Often, the internships we are able to get turn out to be unpaid, but we have to take them anyway for the experience. How are we supposed to pay for college when these are necessary for us to be successful?
And speaking of being successful, there's also the actual stress of getting a job once we graduate. This is one of the hardest things we have to do; it's time-consuming, hard, and incredibly stressful as we make up resumes, cover letters, and wait for responses. It's not that easy to get a job, so we have to do everything we can in college to make the process as easy as possible.
I don't discredit the ideas older generations have about paying for college - it used to be a very valid and smart action. However, it has become a harder and harder feat throughout the years as costs have gone up, more work is piled on, and generally more stress. For those who believe that college students need to work harder, please understand: we're doing the best we can.
