I don’t regret many things in life, but there is one thing I regret mightily.
When I was a senior in high school, I received a full scholarship to the Univ. of New Mexico, without asking for it. The university was targeting bright local kids with good GPAs in hopes of getting them to stay home and contribute to the state. Being a budding elitist, and bearing the mark of so many motivated teens from towns like mine whereby we mistakenly think nothing good ever comes from a place like this, I turned it down. I couldn’t go to UNM, I reasoned. Even though both my parents had gone there and my father had made a nice career for himself as a tenured professor there. I, I told myself, was cut out for bigger and better things. Like Boston. Like the ivy leagues.
Like debt.
Off I went, to get my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from fancy East Coast schools, using student loans to do it. I’m still paying those loans back, almost 20 years later, and I can confidently tell you that the teachers and students at the fancy schools were no better, overall, than their counterparts at the public university I’d turned my nose up at. I can’t tell you how many times, listening to some rich idiot who was a legacy at Columbia, I thought to myself, “Girl, you’ve been duped. You bought the lie of elitism, and man was it expensive.”
They tell you getting a fancy degree from a fancy university will help you get further in life. It’s a lie. Education is what you make of it. I knew spoiled rich kids at Columbia who did heroin and navel shots instead of homework, who are, in their 40s, still living off their parents. I’ve known kids at UNM, from humble backgrounds, who studied their asses off and worked two jobs at the same time, and went on to become successful professionals.
I loved this piece by John Rosemond that also ran in the local paper this morning. In it, he refers to a survey of Fortune 500 leaders that shows many of them went to regular schools like UNM, or no school at all. The idea that a fancy education will guarantee success is flawed. In the final analysis, says Rosemond, it is character, not prestige, that will determine your place in the world.
My greatest success in life has come as a novelist. I never studied to be a novelist. My bachelor’s degree is in music performance, and my master’s degree is in journalism. I began to be a novelist when I was 14 years old. It was a calling. I am convinced now that if I had simply attended UNM and gotten a degree in any field at all, I would still have been a novelist. I might even have been a successful novelist long before it actually happened for me, because I wouldn’t have been sidetracked with other stuff.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the character versus prestige issue lately, as I divide my life between the city of Albuquerque, where my son attends an excellent prep school, and the ranch my cowboy manages 250 miles away. The school is expensive, but the classes are great. But part of me wonders if it might be better for my son to be homeschooled at the ranch, where he’d learn a lot more about character and responsibility than he ever could at any school, no matter how good.
The elitist part of me balks at the idea of moving my bright and promising boy to the middle of nowhere, to both study calculus and shovel manure. Part of me clings to the notion of prep schools and ivy leagues somehow being my son’s ticket to success. But surely I know better than that now, don’t I?
I’ve recently gone into business with a super successful film producer, named as one of the top paid people in Hollywood (if not the top, frankly) in spite of his having come from a very humble background, dropped out of high school, and holding only a GED. Talent is talent. You can’t buy it. And the older I get the more it seems to be that ambition and creativity can actually be thwarted in fancy schools, where a sense of entitlement often reigns. It’s the bright kids who’ve had to struggle a little who have something to say, who think of new ways to do things…
My son was born smart. His smarts won’t go away, no matter where he goes to school. I am starting to think he might do better, in the long run, from having things a little tougher than he does right now. I’m on the fence. I just don’t know.
What I do know? I didn’t need to waste all this money on these fancy degrees. I would have been a writer, eventually, no matter what. I should have taken the scholarship, but I was too arrogant to realize that, and it has been this same arrogance that has stood in my way of certain successes throughout my life. I wish I’d known then what I know now, but I didn’t, and now I just hope I can make the right choices for my son.
Tagged: education, homeschool, ivy league, prep schools, public university, success
I did the same thing. I was offered a scholarship to go to a small private bible college in Kentucky when I was at the end of high school. However, I had my eyes on a college in California. I have family there, and wanted to be close to them. However, in 2004, California was an expensive place for a little girl from Belize to move to. Since, it has gotten worse. I never made it. In fact, now almost 9 years later, I haven’t gone to the US to study at all. Instead, I worked at a small resort for two years, then worked part time while I went to a small local junior college that only offers night classes. Then I taught in rural villages for three years. Now I am back in college working on my BA but still locally. I sold out possibilities for some silly idea. Now I am married to a son of a ranch (who I meant while I was teaching out in the villages) and if I very get close to a Master’s degree it will probably be an online course. I love Belize, but I really missed out.
Doing what you love and being happy are what counts. (And I could add, knowing love.) If you don’t have that, what do you have? You can always aspire to more, but, sometimes, more isn’t what will satisfy your soul. Forwarded My Dog Topaz to another dog lover and he loved it! Thanks again.
thank you for sharing…opening my heart to what is calling me…
I think you know in your heart of hearts what is best. Wrapping you head around it might be a different issue altogether. You’re right you know- smarts are smarts. My cousins were homeschooled- there’s an aeronautical engineer in their family as well as plenty of other successful kids. I think your son will prosper wherever he is, but there’s plenty to learn from being on a ranch.
I agree. I thank God every day my children got to grow up on a farm with livestock to care for. I see the results and they are good.
I just finished reading “The Old Man and the Boy” by Robert Ruark. It is an excellent book, and has really impacted my thinking.
I thought the freedom I enjoyed as a child was magical compared to what children can safely do today, such as just play outside without fear of kidnapping or drive-by shootings. Reading this book pales my childhood by comparison.
Our children are being given so many opportunites to “learn” about just about anything thing you can think of, and not all of it good. While showered with learning opportunities to “succeed”, they are taught very little by example of how to “LIVE”. They can survive going classroom to classroom, but don’t know how to talk to an adult! They are absorbed into computers, mindless TV, IPods, video games and other worthless mind wasters, yet i rarely see kids outside playing and exploring and just being nincompoops anymore. Life’s lessons are not being wasted on the young; the young aren’t even being exposed to those lessons anymore. Boys aren’t being showed life skills….girls don’t know how to cook or clean or sew and these skills are not gender neutral… They leave college and cannot do the basic care for themselves.
If your son has an opportunity to learn about life and values in a way that is positive and constructive, it is seriously worth considering. If he has opportunities to be around the freedom to explore and exposure to adult positive role models, again, this is worth serious consideration. What we learn in school will only take us so far; how we learn about ourselves and how to treat people will take us anywhere.
Excellent comment, JustNanny! This is one of the things my kids and I talk about all the time. Life on a farm/ranch, taking care of animals and learning the basics of life and living, are the best. The rest is easy.
Moving away from NM whether to a fancy school or some where else provided you with experiences and knowledge about other people and cultures that is evident in the rich stories you write. You are this person because of what you encountered and learned back east. My sons went off to colleges in NM and both coasts. Like you, the experiences they have gained have helped them to learn what they like and don’t like about parts of the country and the people and cultures. They have made friends and connections that they will have for life. The east coast experience at a prestigious expensive school that one of the boys had has given him exposure to very different points of view, lifestyles, and attitudes. He loved his college years and friends but knows he does not want the fast paced power driven lifestyle of many of his classmates who will follow their parents’ footsteps and work in large east coast firms where family is a low priority. He appreciates the nature and family focus of NM so much more now. He had humorous stories of rich classmates who wanted to replace broken things by buying brand new items rather than making simple repairs and he showed many a classmate how to fix a flat tire. The education the boys have gotten is beyond compare in the classroom and out. They would have done great at UNM with their same friends, their same environment, their same southwest culture, but I am grateful that they have gotten the education and experiences they received and they have shared the same gratitude. I agree the debt is a pain but to bemoan it at this point is a shoulda, coulda, woulda situation that diminishes the positives that make you the interesting, experienced, fabulous woman you are.