People don’t realize how difficult it is to be a student these days. They don’t know how expensive it is to go to school or how many hours of classes have nothing to do with what will actually be done in the real world, in the proper career context.
Students know the price and students’ parents — who pay for their school — know exactly how expensive it is. Students living paycheck-to-paycheck from their part-time job, while also attending school full-time, can sit in class and tell you exactly how much one minute of their time costs at this university. I am this student and I have actually done this.
I pay $20 per hour of classes just for the athletics department alone. Have I ever been to a football game? No, and I never will, but I still have to pay the fee that comes to $300 for students taking 15 hours per semester. The whole world is set up like this. We’re nearly destroying ourselves studying to be able to step into a 9-to-5 position until we’re able to save up enough money and retire in 40 years.
People don’t realize that many college students carry jobs throughout the entirety of their college careers. “Full-time student with part-time job” becomes the only title that can be held because there are only 24 hours in a day and some of those hours have to be devoted to sleep. Teachers have a hard time grasping this concept as well. A teacher for one class may assign five different assignments in one week — as if my four other classes decided to take the week off and assign no work at all. Not to mention teachers putting deadlines on Sundays or over the sanctioned breaks given by the university. I promise I’m not a go-getter and turning in the work two days early — it’s because my double shift that pays my rent allows no time for a single-spaced, 1-page discussion post on chapter seven.
People don’t realize that college students don’t have free time. In any given free moment, there’s always something else on the list to do. That’s exactly what teachers say, “check the schedule and go on to the next assignment,” right? What meaning does free time have to us students when there’s nothing but schoolwork going through our heads? This mindset makes it almost impossible to have downtime or to relax. Most of the time I have to tell myself, “that’s tomorrow me’s problem” and let the anxiety from the assignment loom inside of my head for the next six hours.
Over the last two years that I have been at UCA, so many things have changed — fees being raised is one of those things, and I guarantee that they will continue to rise in years to come — but I have also changed, not only as a student but as a person.
Thankfully, as a student, I have gained the confidence to be who I want to be in my upcoming career. This confidence was gained by very specific classes, only two or three in my major, that taught me what to do in the real world. In the big picture, with over 120 hours of undergraduate classes, I can’t help but feel like the majority of my time was wasted by taking classes only to get a grade. Who I am as a person now and who I will become after graduation in two weeks — the university doesn’t care about that. They do care about that $30 graduation fee, though.