undermined.
I was part of an argument yesterday, while I was trying to study for midterms I have this week. I know the argument started unwittingly and unintentionally but it continued because of lack of consideration – and quite frankly, ignorance, I believe. I was told, in so many words, in terms of the university I attend and the program I’m currently in, I couldn’t possibly understand the amount of workload a friend of mine has at her accredited university. I do understand workload; I understand workload is different for everyone – even people in the exact same program. Yet, here we got into this argument where one person got increasingly offended and the other kept shoving her foot further in further into her mouth.
It ended abruptly because I already saw myself losing concentration and didn’t want to be condescendingly spoken to anymore, while I’d just spent eight hours (with another four to go) at the library studying for my program’s midterms this week. I couldn’t sleep last night, because it was bothering me, not what happened but the belief that this is the stereotype I probably get from a lot, and I’m not alone. I go to a school that’s rated poorly on the Maclean’s annual university ranking system – however, there’s been so much backlash on that rating system lately that it isn’t even deemed appropriate anymore by many. Yet there is still this stigma with my university – and furthermore, with my Communications program. I get so many people asking me what I’m going to do “with a degree like that” and where I’m going to be – I don’t know, exactly. The thing is, it’s not because I feel there isn’t anything to do with it – the reason I don’t know is because there are so many options and I don’t know what is best for me, what suits me. I get so upset, so passionate about what I study because it’s a part of who I am. When someone says something that undermines me, my intelligence or the education processes from the establishment that teaches me – I’m going to be upset.
I wasn’t apologized to once it was over. I didn’t expect to be, but there was no remorse – well, there was – but for saying them the way they were said – not that they were said at all. I don’t see a difference. I view it as classicism – an “I’m better than you” mentality, so I couldn’t possibly understand.
So I couldn’t sleep. I woke up at 5:00 AM and tossed and turned until I gave up and just got up and studied for my midterm at ten. And amidst studying, I got to thinking.
My program is highly recommended. I go to a university that’s been around since the sixties and has educated and graduated students that practice law all over North America, Engineers in all fields, hundreds of thousands of Nurses and countless other departments have provided useful education for everyone who attends.
I wish I were in this easier university, with standards that were less strict than others. I wish I were in this program that really doesn’t require much work. Okay, fine, most people aren’t even aware about the Communications program or what it is, or what it does or why we have it. But I do. And that’s part of the reason I’m in it – to educate others about it.
I wish I were in a program that has answers – yes and no – right and wrong. I wish I were in a program that provided a set rule book, one that I just had to memorize from page to page in order to receive my ‘A’. But I can’t be. I’m part of a program that gives out degrees based on constant knowledge – knowledge that changes every single day – to be successful. This knowledge has to be sought out – it isn’t found in everyday sources or fifty year old books. There is no right or wrong answer – it’s opinion and arguments in a world full of closed minded people – it’s no easy task.
We study media (that’s – television, radio, printing press – history of, journalism, broadcasting, etc), yes, as well as business, politics, marketing, philosophy, public relations, human behaviour and psychology. We track how the human mind is manipulated by those in charge and why it’s so seemingly simple for those in power to remain in power. Knowledge in my program is not right or wrong. It cannot be memorized – it cannot be graded on who knows how to string along the best sentence. It’s about passion and the knowledge that comes with that passion. The passion to want to learn more, do more, change more and educate others.
We live in a society that’s humanitarianly horrible to our community, environment and each other. I go to school and learn in a program that deals with ignorance every day. I learn each and every day how there are people in this world that want to continue this ignorance that occurs because this continued ignorance allows power to continue for those who should never have had it in the first place. I go to school and learn about this program – this “Communications bird program that isn’t as difficult as more traditional programs” – this way of life in which we live – and somehow make it through each day without wanting to kill myself because I learn about how this world really operates and it scares the shit out of me.
No, my program is easy, easy without the rose coloured glasses so many of us wear in terms of the communities in which we live. We’re so safe, secure and comfortable with our $200 university textbooks that publish edition upon edition to say the same thing, we hide behind these degrees thinking by just a paper on a wall, we’ve accomplished enough and that’s it. This degree I’m in – it doesn’t end with a piece of paper mounted on my wall, framed nicely in black painted wood. I can never get enough credentials to achieve greatness – I will keep going. I have to keep going. I have to keep going to try and change what we already know about the way the world operates – so that our future will have guidance and ability to wake up and not die once we open the front door.
Yes, I am in this easy, not as important university as others. We’re just here, for fun.