Collective Dissonance

I did something most horrible today. I went back to Junior College.

First, a little background. I’m taking an online class this semester at the junior college where I grew up to make up for a previous indiscretion. It’s easy, it’s online, and it’s cheap because I can claim my parent’s address for residency requirements. Everything sounds good, right?

Wrong.

As things are bound to happen in junior college land, they fucked my files up. In fact, they reached such a level of fucked that I had to go see them and talk to them about why things were so fucked.  My plan to easy college credit had been momentarily derailed.

So Monday, I skip my lunchbreak at work, and make my way through the thicket to the junior college “assistance center”. Assistance center is a relative term, mind you. No where it is ever stated how they will assist you. They have, however, apparently had special training in it, because the sign right before the desk read “Wait here for one of our specialists to help you”.

So, on Monday, I get “help” from a specialist. This woman apparently had special training in resetting accounts and proclaiming it a problem solved. Turns out she was just a specialist in fucking things up more. By this time, lunch was over and I had to head back to work with the inevitable feeling that I would be back this week because they hadn’t solved a damn thing.

That brings us back to today, Wednesday. I get off work early at 4:30p so that I can brave the murky abyss to the assistance center. This time, I’ve come prepared with print outs of my error so they can see what to fix. I walk in thinking that this will be easy, and I might even get home before 5.

Wrong.

I open the door, and I see a line before me that stretches from the roped off assistance desk waiting area back to the doors marking the entrance to the counseling area. I’ve happened upon a hour wait in a hallway where the main scenary includes a bathroom.  Begrudgingly, I get in the line and begin to wait out the torture.

Immediately, I stick out like the elephant in the room. Here I was, blue sateen oxford tucked into a pressed pair of dress pants flowing above black dress shoes. There they were, wifebeaters tucked into Dale Earnhardt Jr. approved Wrangers, sleeves made of ink, and even worse, Senior ‘08 t-shirts. It’s fair to say I was out place.

Like the above observation, my wait in life was a highly introspective one. I took time to examine the notable types of junior college people, and their impact within the junior college environment.

There were, of course, the couples. There was one couple in particular that I had my eye on, as they were about four spots ahead of me in line. She was cute, maybe about five foot tall. She had the classic MTV type look the kids are fond of these days, and was obviously no older than 18. The boyfriend was maybe one inch shorter and dressed so preppy that he’ll be highly disappointed when he learns that junior colleges don’t have fratenities. His hair was in possesion of a tube of hair gel, but he is probably blissfully of the slight baldspot taking root on the crown of his head. They were unequivocally the quintessential junior college couple. You don’t know whether to feel happy for them or hate every minute of their existance, but sleep only comes soundly with the knowledge that they’ll fucking tear each other apart before their first year is over, but not before she gets pregnant.

Speaking of parents, that makes up another big junior college group. These people are absolutely some of the worst, because they bring their children everywhere with them. This includes, but is not limited to, registration, lab, lunch, the library, study groups and, of course, class. These people are likely to be the education majors, which is scary in and of itself because they’re so shit at parenting their own kids.

Then, finally, you have the people who “are really going to make it this time”. These are the people who are going back to school for the fifth time, the people promising themselves that they’re not going to drop after they’re made to do real work in the second week. This is the most depressing group, because junior college is so affordable that everyone can up and decide they want an absolutely meaningless associates degree, so they keep coming back for more.

You want to believe that everyone can make it through college, you really do, but it’s just not true. College is fucking hard. Sure, it’s only hard for four weeks out of a 16 week semester, but that one month will knock you on your ass and catch you out so fast that you won’t know what hit you. College isn’t for everyone, and shouldn’t be for everyone, as the world needs the structure that comes from having a wide subset of education. It is in that way that junior college is like a casino. 60% of the clientele are throwing their money at the place hoping for some chance at a better life, and most will fail horribly. You can fuck up as much as you want, and they’ll still take you and still give you the dice.

It’s fair to say that I don’t miss junior college at all.

I don’t mean to be crass, or pompous, or even an ass. Junior college was there when other obligations meant that there was no way I could have gone anywhere else. It was cheap, and gave me a GPA that allowed me to pick where I wanted to go from there.

I would never go back, though, and attend an actual, real life, non-online class at one.

My visit today made me so happy and so grateful that I get to go back to University, because it’s so much different and better than I ever imagined it could be. The atmosphere difference is so astronomically different that I can’t explain it.

The best way I can think to describe it would involve portraying junior college as the 100 meter dash. There’s all this excitement, you’re going to get done really quickly, and it’s hard not to finish. University is like running the marathon. You have to pace yourself to be there at the end, and when you do get to the end, the sheer fact that you got there is an accomplishment in and of itself. The marathon weeds out the 100 meter dash people pretty quick, and the environment is a better place for it.

Above all, University feels like what one would expect college to feel like. Everywhere there are people listening to mp3 players as they walk about, students fervently study to pass their imminent test, bicyclist try their best to kill you on the sidewalks, and people rarely go anywhere without their laptop or source of caffeine. Gone is the incessant bitching from the 50 year old who just now decided to be a nurse, or 55 year old bitter about the fact that they waited to go back to school.

It’s a far better place for it.

Epilogue: I did wait in line for an hour and did finally get my probem fixed. I’m now officially enrolled in a junior college class again. My major source of joy came not from the knowledge that my problem was fixed, but that I didn’t have to go back to that dreadful place. Sure, one junior college class costs the same as my University parking permit, but it’s money well spent.