As the congratulation confetti poured out of my acceptance letter (yes! I actually received confetti as a part of my acceptance letter), I knew the decision in applying at a small all-women’s liberal arts university completed my college application process.

Packing up the car for a short weekend, I fell absolutely in love with everything from the rolling mountains surrounding the university, the slew of handcrafted rocking chairs on the porches, all the way to the historical landmarked buildings. Every college student has that moment when they know that this is their school – and walking across the front quadrangle, I knew I found a place to start my college journey.

Little did I know, signing the paperwork and sending a $400 deposit for my enrollment to be a student in the 2010 class was my way of making a deal with the devil.

Since being in college, I have been through hell and back, and then some. The façade of a well polished community really seemed too good to be true, but once the parents left and the magical fairy dust of being a brand-spankin’ new college student wore off and our student IDs lost their luster, so did the support and cooperation of the administration, the ideals of “sisterhood” as a unique kinship that unites community (the word ‘sisterhood’ plays a major marketing role for all-women’s colleges across the nation and sororities), the spirit of traditions, and the premise that college is actually about learning subjects in a manner of breadth and depth. Read More »

As a creative writing major, I’m extremely lucky to have parents who didn’t scoff at getting the arty side of a liberal arts education. My parents are voracious readers who have a high level of respect for the arts, and as a result they can be happy for me, even when my class schedule looks distinctly impractical.

Love in the Novel

Nabokov

Intro to Buddhist Thought

These are the kind of classes my parents put up with throughout my college career, with nary an Econ class to be found among the lot.

Many students feel a lot of pressure, however, to take classes that will turn around into the best profit. They know their parents are dropping some major Benjamins to keep them in a good school, and they want to return the favor by, at the very least, not making their parents go gray worrying that their children will be living in a box on the street. So they take Econ and finance classes. They try to become good little doctors and lawyers and I-bankers.

But most of the people I know taking that path aren’t particularly happy doing it. Read More »

A common complaint about the Ivy League gang is that we lead very sheltered lives. People on the outside imagine our lives to be one long champagne-soaked yacht ride, a life where all of our wants and needs are taken care of and mummy and daddy’s charge card is always on hand.

In reality, though, more than half of Princeton’s student body is on financial aid, and a very large percentage of that is on nearly 100% financial aid. In addition to that, students spend a lot of time in the summer traveling to developing countries, doing community service in struggling neighborhoods, and generally getting their hands dirty. And yet, the myth persists…and for good reason.

There are a lot of different ways people can be “sheltered.” Ivy Leaguers may not all be rolling in wealth, but they still have an embarrassing lack of practical knowledge across the board. Because most of us spent our young lives with our noses stuck in books or playing some sport obsessively, we don’t really know how to, well, get along in the real world. Read More »

Ah, Thanksgiving traditions.

Some of them are sweet; sitting around a table surrounded by people you love, giving thanks for all the things you’ve been given. Some of them are funny; deep frying an entire turkey or playing board games with a bunch of drunk family members. And some of them, well, some of them we’d really like to never go through again; dodging the inevitable “why are you still single / what are you studying / what are you going to do with a liberal arts degree?” question or watching your uncle’s face turn red as he realizes your politics in no way represent his.

My family has a lot of traditions (many of which include alcohol and loud Italian yelling matches), but one of my favorite things to do every year as a kid was sit down in front of the TV with my aunt and uncle and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. Read More »

Disclosure: I used to go to a liberal arts school– and when I say liberal arts school, I mean liberal arts school. This place was tiny (1500 students) and in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

I lived in an ecologically – friendly dorm, ate veggie burgers, created art out of garbage and was generally bored out of my mind. So naturally, the only thing to do was move to Texas. But that’s besides the point.

Liberal arts kids are a unique breed. Instead of being encouraged to use college as a vessel for job placement and perpetual financial security, they are left to their own devices with indirect help from people like Kant and Foucault.

Consequently, post – college, most L.A. kids drift to boring jobs with meager wages in liberal cities, subsisting only with help from their more traditionally successful benefactors (parents). But all this is, of course, just speculation. Read More »