02 February 2012

VELVETEEN

VELVET TOP, BANANA REPUBLIC-----PLEATHER SKIRT, FOREVER 21-----TIGHTS, TARGET

I HAVE SO MANY different feelings swirling around my head right now. ANXIETY, OPTIMISM, HURT, DISAPPOINTMENT. Living in this interim state of graduate / career unemployed / blogger / undeveloped self can be so difficult to deal with. Leaving those who are weak at heart struggling through the idea that life after school would be simple.

It's hard to come to terms with the idea that buying yourself a degree does not equal buying yourself a job. I recently had a conversation with someone I met at a party on NEW YEAR'S EVE. A young fellow who had moved across the country to my college town, and decided that college wasn't for him. I told him he must be "a romantic" then. He countered that with the idea that going to college is the more romantic route, that just getting a job right out of high school is more realistic. 

I've spent several moments thinking this comment over. I judged this person's credentials: friends with several well known, highly successful fashion bloggers, works at hip clothing company as a clerk, was interested in getting to know me just a little bit better (which I learned after the fact, oblivious to it during this whole conversation). I deemed during the conversation (him slightly inebriated, me not at all) that maybe that comment was just an excuse for feeling slighted by those around him who were in college. And that in my mind's eye, most of the country is on the path to college, more of the norm these days.

BUT maybe this gentleman was right. The crap load high school counselor's feed you that going to a top university and spending upwards of 80,000 on college will land you a successful career making a salary your parents who never graduated college and certainly not high school ever thought of making. Maybe our society is on the downtrend back to a time where high school is the last stop; that being innovative and creative is more valuable and important than your experience as a committee member hustling for Transfer Student scholarships. Or copy editing the satirical newspaper on campus.

And thats just it. My grandparents never went to college. My grandfather was a highly successful entrepreneur in South Eastern Michigan. Only until 4 years ago did he sell his business. My father, technically an immigrant, never graduated high school. My mother never went to college. If you are driven, if you have an ambitious spirit, if you don't let society shun you for doing things the way they used to be done and aren't just shuffled like a sheep to what's considered the next appropriate stage in life, you can succeed. 

A degree isn't going to determine that. Including whether or not you can write, spell, or use proper grammar. Or have a mediocre fashion blog.

Love,

Rachel Beth






Images taken by Brian Garcia of Hate Your Answering Machine.

2 comments :

  1. your cousin JacquelineFebruary 2, 2012 at 7:57 PM

    whatever you do chika, keep up the fashion blog...you got a knack for it ;)

    ReplyDelete