Wrench This

Reflecting on my educational history brings up more emotional facets than I would like to admit, but their relevance is unavoidable since it addresses motivation. The path of institutional learning has been a rocky one for me, and the completion of my undergrad has become in my case a personal vendetta. To understand why I would have to summarize a bit of childhood. This may be more information than requested, but education is a loaded endeavor.

From kindergarten to fifth grade my family lived in Arlington, Texas. The elementary curriculum was difficult, and I remember struggling with the second year of Algebra in the fifth grade. Hours and hours my father would spend trying to explain the steps, and after a while I got the hang of it. In 1987 my father passed away from a type of Cancer that he acquired from exposure to Agent Orange during one of his three tours in Vietnam. My mother grew up in Tucson and chose to move us back here about six months after the funeral. My sister was given the task of choosing a high school that she could deal with so that we might find a house within that district. It was my enrollment in middle school that first exposed me to the difference of educational demographics. The Texas curriculum surpassed that of Arizona. Algebra two classes were for eighth graders and I was only in the sixth.

So from that point to high school graduation I was bored. Life experience would seem, at the time, more stimulating than the curriculum available to me. These life experiences however were detrimental to my scholastic career. I did not take the SAT’s because my rebellion against any institution prohibited that kind of submission. The VA’s offer to finance my community college education lead to an accumulation of debt that took me years to pay off. I had a fake id and spent more time in pool halls than I did in the classroom. Clichéd yes, but I was still rebelling. Even though those decisions seemed to negatively affect my academic career I realize the knowledge I gained from it couldn’t be found in any book. Those were the lessons I had to learn to appreciate the higher education I am purchasing now. After ten years of trudging along this path of institutional learning I have reconciled with my rebellions and have chosen to better arm myself with varying areas of knowledge through both life experience and a higher education.

My schooling thus far is worth every penny. Being able to see past whatever is on the surface to the underlying issues, to question everything especially authority, comprehending some nuance known to the educationally privileged, or perhaps teaching others that do not have the opportunity to learn, these things are worth the time, effort, and money spent on my education.

Whether or not my career is within the field of my educational studies I find totally irrelevant. The point of my continued education is more for myself than my resume. I hope to be a career student in life because outside the institution of learning I am aware of how much more there is to know.