Gamer

Former Inhabitants of 5402:

Whenever the general topic of education, especially public education, is raised, I am strangely unable to come up with a coherent position on any part of the issue. I think my reluctance to take sides on any of the relevant points may come from spending nearly my entire life surrounded by teachers. Nonetheless, I went to school for 16 years, public and then private, I pay taxes that go toward the public schools where I live, and my life is full of people who work in schools, so I obviously have at least a personal basis for an (anecdotal) point of view.

My experience with "the game" was slightly different than all of yours. In high school, to the horror (and I think secretly the pride) of my parents, I not only didn't play the game, but I refused to do anything I thought might even be related to playing the game. I was in no clubs, I didn't stick with any sports for more than two seasons, I did not cultivate relationships with any teachers, and I refused to study for the SATs. "The SATs should be a measure of how much you know, not how much you can memorize right before you take them," I argued. "Colleges should decide whether they want to accept me based on who I actually am, not based on clubs I don't care about padding my resume!" I was a fucking brat.

Obviously I did fine in school. I got mostly A's. I took a few AP classes, although I uncharacteristically bombed one of the tests and didn't get credit in college. I finished in the top 10% in my class (barely). I did well on my first try on the SATs. And despite my anemic resume, I got in early to the U of C, which was the only college I had any interest in. I don't know if that means I fit perfectly into a certain slot in the whole applying-to-college scenario just as I was, and thus didn't need to play the game, or that I got lucky. I think I got lucky.

In college, I absolutely failed to play the game. Julia, I think you probably did a slightly better job than me. At least you wrote a BA. The difference in college from high school was that while I knew I should go to office hours and cultivate a relationship with professors and form a particular academic interest, and I didn't resent those necessities like I did in high school, I totally never did them. For one, I was very much put in my place about my academic abilities as soon as I got to college, and I was shy about that. For another, I am kind of lazy. But also, not playing the game didn't hurt me the first time I didn't do it, so what the hell.

Now, post-college, I have a job that I like (although with no prestige or advancement opportunities) and a plan for what's next and a fear that upon applying to law school I will finally be bitten in the ass by my utter refusal/fear/failure to participate in the game at all.

I don't know where my experience fits given Rita's connected points about the wisdom of gaming a shitty system in order to escape it and not gaming a good system. My high school was okay (Michelle says it was good for New Hamphire, mediocre for the country). I was occasionally inspired in high school, and I grew to really like studying in college. Maybe I played the game enough to succeed just by having involved parents, a natural affinity for standardized tests and a family with enough money to help me go to college wherever I wanted to go.

Non sequiturs: 1) I have been influenced significantly by each of you, and 2) I changed my mind about what I would do all day if I didn't have a job: I would totally watch soap operas. The questions is, could I accomplish brilliant things while keeping up with the twists and turns of General Hospital?