Is it all worth it?

I’m dropping out. Who needs a degree anyway?

Midterm papers are due and exams are approaching. The days are getting shorter and the nights longer. Seasonal depression has set in. It won’t stop raining. I haven’t done laundry, and nothing in the food court looks edible. I owe money to the bursar, the credit card company and my parents.

This isn’t working out.

And I know I’m not the only one thinking it. Only 70 percent of students starting at IU-Bloomington in 2003 had graduated five years later. The rest left for one reason or another.

While some may have transferred, many just called it quits.

And I’m ready to join them because some days, it’s hard to see the point.

Am I here to be educated, indoctrinated or to learn how to please a professor whose conception of reality I question?  You can’t tell me this pretentious exchange of ideas is preparing me for life.

Or is it?

I guess it doesn’t really matter, because I’m done. Well, I want to be. But I can’t quite say goodbye.

Because the fact can’t be ignored: Individuals who earn a bachelor’s degree make 54 percent more on average than those who attend college but don’t finish. But for an English major who’ll probably make his living as a Starbucks barista with or without a diploma, does it even matter?

Sure, while you’re at school there are things to do, sites to see and places that are open after 10 p.m. – something I can’t find at home. You can do as you please, go to sleep when you want and work when you feel like it.

But I still want to go.

Maybe it’s the constant pressure – meeting after meeting, paper after paper.
Where’s the time to explore? 

My intellectual pursuit is less of a personal quest through uncharted territory and more of a walk down the well-worn path to Ballantine. I have quickly learned that professors’ requests for an “original thesis” really means one fitting within the context and patterned systems of thought they hold.

And they give the grades, so I suck it up. But I can’t do it anymore.
I’m also tired of feeling like I’m not doing enough.

Everywhere I look around campus, I see people doing more, rising higher faster. How could anyone ever measure up?

Because it’s not just what you do in class; it’s about service and letters of recommendation. I know since I’ve been here, I haven’t volunteered for any charity. I’ve rarely – and by rarely, I mean never – gone to office hours. And you know you haven’t either.

Last week, I thought of starting an organization called “Students Making Change.” Though our mission would be providing quarters and dimes to individuals in need of converting their paper money to coined currency, I think the club name could really pop off the page in the eyes of a potential employer.

Who knows, it could even make up for my non-existent diploma.