Idk, I went to a fancy school that has produced a number of famous authors, musicians, artists, etc. but as a kid who applied to college from foster care with good grades and test scores but no one to guide me (I vividly recall sitting on the floor of the Barnes & Noble reading US News and World Report’s College Guide cover to cover), I had no idea how much damage I’d do to myself striving to keep up with my fancy liberal arts college classmates, Nepo babies many of them or just simply people who had fallback plans and parents to guide them. I don’t regret my college experience, but might have been better off at SUNY Binghamton (my safety school), where I could have gotten some real-world experience and a bit of vocational guidance beyond: dream big and follow your dreams.
I graduated from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln ("Where was that?" and "Why?!" were the two questions almost guaranteed would come my way every single time I disclosed that fact), and guess who were the top "notable alumni" on Wiki? Warren Buffett, Johnny Carson, Evan Williams, ... and the list goes on - Willa Cather, Mary Pipher, and, Roxane Gay.
Gotta say, I'm the exact opposite. When I scammed my way into the French university system, everyone assumed I wanted to go to La Sorbonne but I wouldn't have been caught dead there, even for free (university is free in France, so I probably could have been caught live or dead there). I chose the university where the riots were (it's since been torn down and renamed for Denis Diderot, presumably in a bid to go bougify it and lose its renegade/commie reputation of the late 60s.) Anyway, I'd have loved to get into SUNY (and actually got accepted to Stony Brook, the only non-strictly-arts university I applied to back when I was in High School, but was not allowed to go). I was honored to have a writer-in residency workshop at SUNY (New Paltz), where I even had a student who'd turned down another acceptance in order to attend SUNY because they didn't want to be in a rarified atmosphere. Many of my students had difficulty accessing internet from their homes and didn't have a lot of money, so I taught my class as a broke artist, myself, only assigning projects that used available and cheap materials and spaces. Many of us and more and more of us regular people have to work from a public library or a starbucks or from work, or wherever we can. I'm all for strivers. I am not even conscious of striving. I just make what I can with what I have.
Honestly, I have no respect for the Ivy League, and the system that exploits underpaid adjuncts and builds debt, etc. For that matter, I told my students about every single free or very cheap university I ever heard of. If the scam I used to get into French university weren't such a one-off, I'd spread the word to that, too. (But similarly tuition-free German universities take international students, no scam needed! And you can get a medical degree in Puerto Rico that's valid in the USA for, last I heard, $40 a credit) If more of us attended the free and cheap universities proudly, maybe more of us would also teach at them. Maybe they'd become more prestigious than the Ivy Leauges!
OMG, Sari. You have nothing to be ashamed of. YOU ARE a striver. Congratulate yourself for all you've accomplished, and let in the love and appreciation of all the people whose lives you touch. Your work is transformative.
I loved going back to school when I was 51 for the few credit hours I needed for my BA, and I realized it was because I didn't have the dread and worry that were every minute when I was there as a teenager and young adult.
Sari- yes! So much of this resonates!! I could go on and on with examples, but I’ll just say, YES. That tender balance of wanting but not striving too openly is real, and perilous. And yes! Get the Oldster interview to Kim!!
Judging people based on their alma mater says a lot about our society, whose oneupmanship-driven measurement of success places far more emphasis on money and celebrity than on character and curiosity, which seem to have lost all value. People who ask where you went to school as part of sussing you out are two-dimensional dullards. I was once a reluctant guest at a party overrun with Ivy-league alumni who all talked about the same things: their expensive holidays to exotic locales, their investment portfolios. Far more intriguing to me is what inspires a person, and how they are spending their one precious life. Striving to move through the world with curiosity and compassion is the kind of striving I can get behind.
Strivers are more interesting, and contribute more (no matter where they start from). PLEASE don’t waste your time worrying about what the snobbiest gatekeepers think!!! It just feeds their made-up power. Our creativity is better spent undermining them than appeasing them.
I’m glad to see you share how your parents’ divorce during your adolescence at impacted you then and for your entire life. You were on your own for figuring out how to get an education and pay for it. I really appreciated the links about the New York Times newsroom. I would love to see celebration of community colleges and state colleges and affordable colleges and people who work their own way through. Just for your information, you are one of my most admired, if not the most admired writer/curator, on substack.
Am I embarassed that I "only" went to the University of Colorado? I suppose if were hanging out with a bunch of folks from Ivy League schools, I would feel a little self-conscious. But at sixty, I mostly feel proud that I worked by butt off to get through college with pretty much no help from anyone. And that I then launched myself into the world where I've strived very hard to make my own way and had a pretty interesting life.
Oh, I've had my own insecurities -- hello, weight struggles -- but something about my childhood made me pretty supremely indifferent to what others think of me. Sometimes for good, sometimes or bad.
I admire and almost envy your striving. It takes a ton of energy to strive and to succeed as you have. You had to dig deep to find that energy based on what you said about your upbringing. I grew up without a mom and I know what it feels like to dig for the energy to take the next big step, like go to college. I have felt sheepish because I went to an open-admissions art school, Columbia College Chicago (class of 1987). But really, I'm proud of myself for doing that on my own, and for thriving in their cool creative-writing department. I then worked as a legal proofreader to put myself through the final two years, and then I worked at a group of trade magazines for dentists. I wish I had strived harder to have a freelance writing career back then. From my perspective, you have so much to be proud of!
Where you went to school feels like such a relic from my past. That said, we all had these journeys to who we would become. I grew up with so much pressure to attend a little Ivy since my dad had to settle on that, lol, bad test taker and such striving to the Phi Beta Kappa that was on repeat that I made friends with some serious addictions. We’re not friends anymore ❤️. I think of a generation of us striving in our analog lives to have come out the other side with the same spark as Kim Gordon, I hope.
Idk, I went to a fancy school that has produced a number of famous authors, musicians, artists, etc. but as a kid who applied to college from foster care with good grades and test scores but no one to guide me (I vividly recall sitting on the floor of the Barnes & Noble reading US News and World Report’s College Guide cover to cover), I had no idea how much damage I’d do to myself striving to keep up with my fancy liberal arts college classmates, Nepo babies many of them or just simply people who had fallback plans and parents to guide them. I don’t regret my college experience, but might have been better off at SUNY Binghamton (my safety school), where I could have gotten some real-world experience and a bit of vocational guidance beyond: dream big and follow your dreams.
I graduated from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln ("Where was that?" and "Why?!" were the two questions almost guaranteed would come my way every single time I disclosed that fact), and guess who were the top "notable alumni" on Wiki? Warren Buffett, Johnny Carson, Evan Williams, ... and the list goes on - Willa Cather, Mary Pipher, and, Roxane Gay.
Case closed :).
Gotta say, I'm the exact opposite. When I scammed my way into the French university system, everyone assumed I wanted to go to La Sorbonne but I wouldn't have been caught dead there, even for free (university is free in France, so I probably could have been caught live or dead there). I chose the university where the riots were (it's since been torn down and renamed for Denis Diderot, presumably in a bid to go bougify it and lose its renegade/commie reputation of the late 60s.) Anyway, I'd have loved to get into SUNY (and actually got accepted to Stony Brook, the only non-strictly-arts university I applied to back when I was in High School, but was not allowed to go). I was honored to have a writer-in residency workshop at SUNY (New Paltz), where I even had a student who'd turned down another acceptance in order to attend SUNY because they didn't want to be in a rarified atmosphere. Many of my students had difficulty accessing internet from their homes and didn't have a lot of money, so I taught my class as a broke artist, myself, only assigning projects that used available and cheap materials and spaces. Many of us and more and more of us regular people have to work from a public library or a starbucks or from work, or wherever we can. I'm all for strivers. I am not even conscious of striving. I just make what I can with what I have.
Honestly, I have no respect for the Ivy League, and the system that exploits underpaid adjuncts and builds debt, etc. For that matter, I told my students about every single free or very cheap university I ever heard of. If the scam I used to get into French university weren't such a one-off, I'd spread the word to that, too. (But similarly tuition-free German universities take international students, no scam needed! And you can get a medical degree in Puerto Rico that's valid in the USA for, last I heard, $40 a credit) If more of us attended the free and cheap universities proudly, maybe more of us would also teach at them. Maybe they'd become more prestigious than the Ivy Leauges!
Viva SUNY and CUNY and bring back tuition-free!
OMG, Sari. You have nothing to be ashamed of. YOU ARE a striver. Congratulate yourself for all you've accomplished, and let in the love and appreciation of all the people whose lives you touch. Your work is transformative.
Anyone who shames someone for what college they went to is a complete loser. I'm proud to be a fellow striver from UAlbany ('88). Go Great Danes!
This HITS! ❤️
I loved going back to school when I was 51 for the few credit hours I needed for my BA, and I realized it was because I didn't have the dread and worry that were every minute when I was there as a teenager and young adult.
Sari- yes! So much of this resonates!! I could go on and on with examples, but I’ll just say, YES. That tender balance of wanting but not striving too openly is real, and perilous. And yes! Get the Oldster interview to Kim!!
Fellow striver here hoping you get the oldster q&a into Kim Gordon’s hands. Would love to hear her responses!
Judging people based on their alma mater says a lot about our society, whose oneupmanship-driven measurement of success places far more emphasis on money and celebrity than on character and curiosity, which seem to have lost all value. People who ask where you went to school as part of sussing you out are two-dimensional dullards. I was once a reluctant guest at a party overrun with Ivy-league alumni who all talked about the same things: their expensive holidays to exotic locales, their investment portfolios. Far more intriguing to me is what inspires a person, and how they are spending their one precious life. Striving to move through the world with curiosity and compassion is the kind of striving I can get behind.
Strivers are more interesting, and contribute more (no matter where they start from). PLEASE don’t waste your time worrying about what the snobbiest gatekeepers think!!! It just feeds their made-up power. Our creativity is better spent undermining them than appeasing them.
I’m glad to see you share how your parents’ divorce during your adolescence at impacted you then and for your entire life. You were on your own for figuring out how to get an education and pay for it. I really appreciated the links about the New York Times newsroom. I would love to see celebration of community colleges and state colleges and affordable colleges and people who work their own way through. Just for your information, you are one of my most admired, if not the most admired writer/curator, on substack.
Am I embarassed that I "only" went to the University of Colorado? I suppose if were hanging out with a bunch of folks from Ivy League schools, I would feel a little self-conscious. But at sixty, I mostly feel proud that I worked by butt off to get through college with pretty much no help from anyone. And that I then launched myself into the world where I've strived very hard to make my own way and had a pretty interesting life.
Oh, I've had my own insecurities -- hello, weight struggles -- but something about my childhood made me pretty supremely indifferent to what others think of me. Sometimes for good, sometimes or bad.
I admire and almost envy your striving. It takes a ton of energy to strive and to succeed as you have. You had to dig deep to find that energy based on what you said about your upbringing. I grew up without a mom and I know what it feels like to dig for the energy to take the next big step, like go to college. I have felt sheepish because I went to an open-admissions art school, Columbia College Chicago (class of 1987). But really, I'm proud of myself for doing that on my own, and for thriving in their cool creative-writing department. I then worked as a legal proofreader to put myself through the final two years, and then I worked at a group of trade magazines for dentists. I wish I had strived harder to have a freelance writing career back then. From my perspective, you have so much to be proud of!
Where you went to school feels like such a relic from my past. That said, we all had these journeys to who we would become. I grew up with so much pressure to attend a little Ivy since my dad had to settle on that, lol, bad test taker and such striving to the Phi Beta Kappa that was on repeat that I made friends with some serious addictions. We’re not friends anymore ❤️. I think of a generation of us striving in our analog lives to have come out the other side with the same spark as Kim Gordon, I hope.