The First Thought: On Lost Scholars

I finally graduated after a fifteen-year delay. My travels through the corridors of collegiate academia often paralleled a scholar's haunted house. In my travels I witnessed the drastic differences between the tiers and the years of university life in America.

I started my college career with a full-ride pre-medicine program at a tier one school; however, I received the biggest shock and disappointment in my life. I believe the best phrase to demonstrate my "shock" comes from the rapper Biggie Smalls when he stated in his song Juicy, "It was all a dream..."

College is propagandized as a stepping stone in the American Dream. Now I ask that the reader be kind and for you to not misconstrue my thoughts regarding education because my biggest strength is in learning. However, I had no false ideas regarding the boobie-trapped illusions of the "American Dream" and I learned about those traps as a child growing up on the outer fringes of some of America's many social issues.

I consumed books about classic scholars who went to college and ate intellectual bites for lunch, while flossing books after. My misguided notion of the search for knowledge on an academic level was so far off the path that I had no sense of direction with regard to where I really wanted to go.

There is this concept that a bachelor's degree will give you the key to open many of the locked doors of opportunity that exist within the world; however, that's just an assumption that people assumed because of the propagandized promotions of education. The elite of society attend university and those who wish to swim away from the dark waters of low-class society can do so by gaining a degree, or that is what the "invisible" commercial says. Is it true? Can you really swim away from the dark waters and become one of the "elite"?

I ask this question to those who take the leap and read this far, how much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice in order to become "number one"? Who will be on top because that is the goal of how we are trained from institutionalized primary school, high school, college, and the work place.

The reality of the situation focuses on the disregard and unappreciative approach by the younger generations. When something is given to you, or you have it all the time then it loses its value because it has always existed within your zone of connection. The cove in the above image is valuable because of its distance from my zone of connection. I have to wait for summer, I have to drive an hour, and I have to hike around a cliff-side to get to that cove; thus, its beauty carries a higher significance in my value system because of the lengths I crossed to capture the image.

In a recent lower level introductory English course, a fellow student made the following comment, "This class means nothing, like anyone who takes this stuff seriously is really...come on." I never forgot what he said because it nailed the true thoughts of most students today. Many of my recent and past classmates made the same statements, "I just want to get this over with."

Once upon a long-time ago, I entered the university with the thought that the word "student" was synonymous with "scholar". I learned then and I have learned since that a scholar is indeed a rare person and that the true goal that I set for myself was to become a scholar.

I love learning and I love being able to express myself in a manner that is congruent with my thoughts. I only hope that some day, other lost scholars will find their way and bring the population back to our universities and colleges throughout the world.