By Eric Fisk | Observer Contributor
(With Apologies to Harlan Ellison, Dennis Miller, Lewis Black, Andy Rooney, and any other commentator that’s inspired me and for whom I’m about to rip off.)
Many of the students I’ve been talking to have the same problem I have, and that’s the inability to get “the work” done after class. All of us have issues that we have to cope with after we drive away from the campus parking lots. Most of us have families or jobs, many of us have both. More than a handful have spouses and children and there are quite a few of us — like my self — who have elderly parents who also need us to check up on them from time to time.
Many of us get pressured to make “The Work” take a back seat. I have to put it off until later since my homework assignment is less important to everyone else. My book assignments are less important than the kid’s lunches, the cat box, the dishes and the recycling that’s built up on the counter, and the two pounds of dog hair that’s collected behind the refrigerator. None of this was important until I sat down and opened my programs at my desk?
For those of us who have spouses with high pressure and very important jobs that take them away from the house too often, don’t get me started…we’re tired of being life-support systems for your careers. Now it’s our turn.
The question I have for everyone in my life outside the Mount Wachusett grounds is – when is it going to be about “me.”
I know for a fact that the world outside of MWCC is a harsh, mean and vicious. It’s an employer’s market out there; for every job posting there is there are dozens of applicants. To get an interview you have to have the proper skills and experience listed on your resume. At the interview, you actually need to know what you’re talking about before you sit down. Employers are like hungry sharks and will strike you out the moment they smell fear or your blood in the water. College is our time to “learn how to swim.”
Keep in mind also that somehow, some way, we’re paying for this educational process with grants, scholarships or loans. Getting the coin to go to school was a career in itself for me and I’ll be paying the loan back for years to come. Why can’t I get the most out of it? Not taking full advantage of this experience would be like borrowing money from the bank to buy a car that I have to keep in the garage.
This is our time to be selfish. There is never going to come a time in our lives when “The Work” will be this important. What we do now, and how well we do it, will determine our level of success the minute we re-enter the job market. Everyone else needs to understand that.
The rest of the family wants the pool in the back yard, the trips to Disney World, the expensive toys or the chance to go to an expensive school themselves when their time comes; it’s time for them to sacrifice too.
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