Too Cool for School

On my first subway ride on Line 1, I didn’t know what to do until the lights went out in my car, not knowing where the last stop was. When I think back on my time at university, a series of confusions come to mind.

I remember feeling like a failure in the entrance exam and wondering how close I should be to my classmates. I gave up my dream of becoming a journalist because I didn’t want to be hated. The emotional turmoil I felt while traveling down from Seoul on KTX, leaving behind my favorite things to join the army. Standing alone among dozens of people who didn’t like me and even hated me. I couldn’t say anything in front of someone who was experiencing great heartache, and I lost the chance to say what I really wanted to say to them forever… I experienced all of these things for the first time, and I didn’t know what to do each time.

I also remember the cynicism and disbelief that came with it. The higher-ups at the school who told me that nothing I wrote would change any little bit of society. The people who said, “What the hell are you doing getting involved in student organizations, writing, and spreading the word?” and put a bunch of question marks over my face. I also remember a senior who told me that I would never get a job if I didn’t study business, and that I would lose out to majors even if I developed it. There are many words and actions that are too scarred to glorify as stimuli that helped me develop further.

I hated myself too. I hated myself. There were many people who believed in me and supported me through the chaos. But even those good words fell on deaf ears because I didn’t believe in myself. In the midst of all the words being thrown around, I thought, “Maybe this is right. What makes you think I can do this? I just want to make $250 a month, can I do that? I lived with anxiety. My anxiety was hard to hide, and it made people not want to be around me, and whenever that happened, I was very self-pitying and blamed myself.

The first moment I thought I was doing well was when I entered college and made my first money in development. I thought I’d have to look into people skills, notices, cover letters, advice from current employees, and stuff like that. I thought I’d realize something like, “Ehhhh, I’m done with this crap and I need to get a job,” switch modes, and start kicking the shit out of the things I liked and the time I spent in school, thinking it would all stop, but it didn’t. That was a pretty big confidence booster. Before I started looking for a job, I paid a lot of money to get my hair done and have a headshot taken at a good photo studio, and it was a great feeling to realize that I never put it on my resume.

In the very early stages of my career, when I dropped out of school and left my enemies behind, I almost lived in denial of who I was in school. I was ashamed of my past self, confused and scared. I made my diploma and the rest of my classes seem like a chore. I thought my time in school was a waste, and I told others so.

Of course, it’s flat-out wrong. I can’t deny that the things I learned and experienced in school shaped a lot of who I am today. I learned the value of understanding people by being in the middle of conflict. I learned the value of understanding people by being in the middle of a conflict. Writing in English, doing an essay talent show where I had to write a book’s worth of material in 12 sentences, and taking a midterm exam that felt like a six-page test from the past, forced me to look at writing, which I had always loved, as a skill and hone it.

There are things I learned on my own, and there are things I learned in the classroom. I found self-paced learning very rewarding, and I hated class. I can’t choose what I need to learn and put it in a situation that is completely optimized for me. I want to be the cool kid in school, the one who can choose my own learning and grade my own achievements. If I can grow on my own without being in the system, that’s the kind of person I’d like to be, free from decades of schooling. In the end, I hope I never have to go to school again.

In the end, as confusing as this post is, with all the good and bad things I felt in college, I was one semester away from withdrawing, and I knew I had to graduate. I just wish there was some sort of outcome to all these mixed feelings. Just because a diploma doesn’t mean much to me now, doesn’t mean that my time in college doesn’t suck.

-Jessica

There was a bench behind the school’s main library, although much of it has disappeared since the construction of the new library. It’s a narrow, obscure space between the side door and the building, so it’s not often seen. This is where I had a particularly bad fall. I couldn’t do anything about my own confusion. I sat down and crossed my arms, lost in thought, cried, called my mom, laughed, sat next to a friend, and rambled on.

My life has changed a lot since then, and I look back on those moments on the bench as awkward scenes that don’t feel like me. I lived in denial, saying that I was not who I was, but some moments are found everywhere in my body and mind now. The things I remember, appreciate, hate, and don’t know what to do with are now here. Will I come back here again? I don’t know.