Ferrari Williams
My head hung low beneath the bill of my baseball cap as I tried to disguise my hangover from the night before.
Slumped deep into the concave-shaped chair intricately placed in the back of my 11 a.m. journalism class, I started to feel the consequences of my actions in my stomach.
As the sensation grew to throw up, it became more apparent that I was a grown up still in school. It wasn’t just school, it was a four-year undergraduate institution.
As I counted how many drinks I hammered down during my partying oblivion, I counted how many of my friends from the party had already graduated: all of them.
It had been two years since my five friends graduated from college at the ripe young age of 21 while I was a 23-year-old senor citizen.
Why was I still in school?
While most of my friends had the guidance of alumni parents, I was a child of none.
Neither of my parents were college graduates.
In fact, I am the first to graduate high school on my dad’s side of the family.
Growing up, I was never encouraged not to go to college, but I was never educated on how to.
But for some reason, unknown to me, I was intrigued with the idea of getting a college degree.
In the midst of all the college confusion, I managed to single handedly complete a college application, a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and register for a community college.
Unfortunately, there was still the process of picking your classes from the catalogue that I fell short of.
Although I knew what I wanted to major in early on, I was unaware of the process that followed my decision.
That process included speaking with a counselor and creating an educational plan which I did not learn until I was already a year behind in my studies.
To make a long story short, my college career has been slower than the average student.
Similarly, there are other students who somewhat feel the same way.
While I was a transfer student, which as most of you know can be a long process in itself, 24-year-old Keyon Roberts of CSUN was not; he went straight to college from high school.
Like me, Keyon did not receive much family support when it came to college but Keyon was self-motivated.
“I actually went to college for my grandmother. I wanted to show her that I was a smart kid.”
Unlike me, Keyon experienced difficulty is his major, which landed him on academic probation and held him back a year and a half.
When asked if he was negatively affected by the set back, he boldly said it helped him for the better.
“It was a fall forward. Now I’m getting the chance to make connections and I have better study habits,” said Keyon
Keyon eventually switched his major and hopes to graduate in the near future.
When asked how school has affected his social life, Keyon said he parties three times a week and when I asked about his friends, I was shocked to learn they too were 23 and over in the same predicament.
They all seem to be happily taking advantage of the student and senior discount at the movies.
Although Keyon seems unfazed by his fading youth, he and I both know that our welcome is withering as fast as compacted classes during registration.
Each day, “my” bachelor’s degree seems further from my grasp and my will to continue with school is constantly challenged and tempted by the college graduate obligation-less lifestyle of my same aged friends.
I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on the best years of my life because I chose to take things slow.
Sometimes I feel like I’m imprisoned by the school system.
And just when I start to recover from my feelings of hopelessness and vodka shots, I receive an invitation via text message that reads, “I got us on the list for Le Deux tonight. It’s the hottest club in Hollywood.”
As you can imagine, my response was a somber yet familiar one that read, “I cant. I have homework due tomorrow for class.”
There are many reasons students become senor citizens; some are beyond their control and others are a result of there own decisions but I wonder, how big is the reward at the end of the road?
After all, you can never get your “20s” back but you can always get the degree.
()