Minimum Service Requirement. I've been sick this past week and been feeling like hell. In my illness, I cranked out this essay for study abroad that I'm sure reflects the bitterness from being sick and all, yet I would say it's a pretty darn good representation of where I feel like my life stands at the moment. I'm pretty dang sure I'm gonna have to rewrite this whole thing before I submit it, but before I censor and sanitize it and deprive it of any soul, I thought I'd share it with y'all. I decided to title this piece "Minimum Service Requirement" cuz I guess it kinda reflects how I feel like I'm just barely managing to eke out something resembling a meaningful existence right now. Here's the essay...
"My name is Daniel ----, and I’m currently a third year student in aerospace engineering. I grew up in Plano, Texas- the epitome of rich suburbia. I attended college, not because I passionately wanted to forward my lot in life, but because it was what was expected of kids from Plano. Therefore in high school, I made the grades and participated in the extracurriculars because that’s what they tell you to do to get into college. And upon graduation, I enrolled at UT Austin, my safety school. Again, here at college, I almost robotically joined up with clubs and cranked through the coursework. I would describe myself as a posterchild for your run-of-the-mill college matriculant. But in the end,
everything in my college experience (and in fact, my life)
has felt so rote and mechanical, as if it had been scripted. I yearn for something NOT foretold by the “Suggested Eight-Semester Program.”
With graduation looming on the horizon,
I’m at a loss to state what exactly my undergraduate experience has amounted to. A few textbook snippets memorized, a few acquaintances made?
I feel like I’ve gone through all the motions here at college yet somehow missed the point completely. I think the opportunity to spend some time at a university overseas would help me gain some perspective on what these past three years have meant.
I came into college with the notion that it was supposed to be a life-changing experience, one that defines a person and matures them from a child to an adult. Well, to date, I feel like I’m still the same person I was when I first came to Austin.
For me, college has not lived up to its hype as a formative experience. Perhaps the transformative quality of the college experience typically arises from being thrust into a wholly unfamiliar situation and is due to an exposure to new ideas and new kinds of people. In that regard, I suppose my experience has been sorely lacking. Too many people from my hometown and a lifestyle too similar to the one before have attributed to my remaining within my isolated shell of a world. I need to experience something different to know what I have gained and where I stand now.
One of the program outcomes for my degree is “to provide students with an awareness of the effects of technology in a contemporary global and societal context.” This is a worthy goal, but altogether one that I find myself incapable of satisfying here in Austin. With the widespread globalization of the economy, it is of utmost importance for us to appreciate and understand diverse cultures. In this regard, I feel there is much to be gained from a semester abroad. Given the opportunity, my success would be measured in the knowledge of other people’s lifestyles and my own. I hope to gain a better understanding of what it means to be American and to find out what I have truly gained from college."
...I cut off the last paragraph which is kinda irrelevant to this post. But yea, minus a couple token phrases that I stuck in just cuz I think that's what they like to hear, this pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole college experience to date. =/
"I want something else to get me through this semi-charmed kinda life."
~ Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life
