Last year, when I would see one of my elders, they would always ask what my plans for the future were. They wanted to know if I was going to be attending college and when I would answer yes, they’d ask where. I think it's a huge deal to be attending college off-island because it's almost expected of people to graduate from high school on Guam and then proceed to stay on Guam. It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, where people have the mentality that's it’s impossible to leave Guam.
For so long, I thought it was. I had my life planned out where I would study to be secondary education teacher in one of Guam's public schools, preferably M.U. Lujan Elementary School or George Washington High School. I would teach and have a love-hate relationship with my students, because if you were ever in high school, you know how immature and childish high schoolers can be. I would stay on Guam and wade in the life — my life — until I died and was buried in Barrigada.
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Following this little Q&A between me and whoever happened to question the plans for my future, they would say something like, “That’s good! Go and get your degree, then come back to Guam. We need people like you.”
Now, before I had left, I was all for it. I'd get a good, quality education from somewhere that was far from Guam, preferably, and then return to be one of the best teachers to ever be employed by the Guam Department of Education. I thought that I would return to school and get my master's, become a principal or a counselor, and then work for the future of Guam like my life depended on it (because it did, what with future leaders in our schools and all that). After a few decades of working and not getting a just compensation, I would climb the job ladder and maybe become the superintendent and change the hell out of Guam schools. Then I got to Milwaukee, and my thoughts on returning had changed.
But let me pause for a second and clarify something before I go into this next bit. I love my island. It took leaving it to realize just how much I love it. I bought a Guam shirt, a Guam phone case, I make Guam food, so I do not hate it. My thoughts changed because I firmly believe the U.S. mainland has better opportunities for me at the moment. I'm not purely writing to attack Guam, but to show why I choose not to attend a university on an island and why I choose not to stay on Guam for a while.
So, I want to talk about a video I saw for the University of Guam a couple months ago. The caption for the video was "Be part of the generation that defies the idea that nothing big comes out of a small island."
The video made me feel like a crappy person for ever wanting to go off-island. But that's exactly what we've been trying to overcome, the mentality that we are not meant to leave Guam. I think that the island is way too small to be keeping such great minds from leaving to expand their horizons and contribute early to society. Besides, what’s wrong with wanting to leave Guam to get an education — a true quality one, mind you — and then returning after a few years? Yes, there are people who attended the University of Guam and Guam Community College that are making waves on our tsunami-free island (knock on wood), but there are just as many people who left that and came back for the island.
If you look at some of our greatest leaders, you'll find quite a few have attended school off-island. If we want to specifically talk about Marquette alumni, Governor Carlos G. Camacho, his son, Governor Felix P. Camacho, and Supreme Court Justice Frances Tydingco-Gatewood graduated from Marquette (with her bachelor's. She went on to receive her law degree from another institution). All three people have held important positions on Guam. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these people are pretty darn important and “big” to our island. Anyone who has ever left the island has put in hard work and decided to sacrifice many things to leave the island. I'm not the richest person on the Guam by a long shot, but damn it, I'm getting an education that's worth all the blood, sweat and tears. The United States has so many more opportunities for young adults to discover who they are, and I always felt Guam limited what I could be.
Now that we're on the limitations, let me give some facts. University of Guam has around 35 majors, while Marquette has nearly 80. Still, New York University and University of Wisconsin-Madison have upwards of 230 majors and programs of study for students to choose from. That is one of the hugest gaps in terms of career choices. I wanted to attend a school that allowed me to the chance to switch to something I'd love if education ended up being something I was not fully invested in.
As it turns out, that was the right move. Looking through UOG's majors list, the only other program that I would have wanted to study would have been psychology. When I chose not to do education at Marquette, I looked at communication studies, social welfare and justice, women's and gender studies, psychology, classical languages, French, public relations, theater arts—because everyone says I should do theater — and finally, speech pathology and audiology. I had a variety of majors and programs of study to choose from, which is something short of a blessing.
On a little side note, I want to mention that UOG doesn’t even have an engineering program, but a pre-engineering one. Engineering is literally one of the majors that every college should have some form of. I know two people who wanted to do engineering. One decided to settle for a different major, while another is in the process of transferring to another college.
Furthermore, when I chose to attend Marquette, I looked at some statistics for each college. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, University of Guam has a 29 percent graduation rate and 76 percent retention rate, Marquette has an 89 percent retention rate with a 79 percent graduation rate, and, unsurprisingly, New York University has a 92 percent retention rate and an 83 percent graduation rate.
So why am I choosing not to return to Guam? As if what I’ve already said isn’t enough.
First, there is not one college that offers my major on Guam. If I want to follow the path to becoming a speech-language pathologist, then I need to go to a school in the States. It’s highly unfortunate that Guam needs speech-language pathologists, but we don’t have a program in any of the colleges to guide some of our own.
Second, I need to get my master's degree and pass the American Speech-Language Hearing Association certification. Again, there are no programs for speech-language pathology on Guam, but there might still be hope. Through a grapevine called nino-cousin Joey, I learned Guam might actually be doing a program that'll allow me to get my master's for free. The catch is I have to work on Guam for a year. I'm fine with that, but once the year is up, I plan on leaving for a time. But why leave when I’m already here/there on Guam?
That’s the third reason: to gain experience. I know that Guam needs SLPs. I'm not saying I will never come back to Guam, but that for a time I will choose not to. Before I decide to settle down on Guam, because who can resist the beautiful place I call home, I want to be a top-notch, weathered SLP that can make a huge difference on the island. I will return to Guam permanently one day, but just not anytime soon.
And again, let me say that taking the time and effort to attend an off-island school is a huge investment. I'm one of the people who have big dreams, dreams that Guam cannot satisfy. The differences in colleges here and colleges that are stateside are rather immense. But I’ve still made a promise to return a better person for the people of Guam, despite, unsurprisingly, the less than stellar compensation SLP’s get here.
