It Was the College of Life That Made Me Successful in the University

Daily writing prompt

What colleges have you attended?

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I was 36 when I first went to Georgia State University. I earned three degrees there, including a Bachelor’s, a Master’s, and a PhD in Sociology. I learned a lot in the university classrooms of GSU, graduating Magna Cum Laude at age 45, and receiving many honors and awards.

People often asked me how I could do so well in my classes while being a mother and working a full-time job. I explained to them that I had lived much of what I studied in sociology, but I didn’t understand why I had suffered so many setbacks in life until I learned the subject. So, it was the college of life that was the most important of the colleges I attended.

By the time I went to college, I had learned a lot about the world’s cruelty and of surviving in it, but I didn’t know the words to describe why the world was so mean. In college, I learned concepts like patriarchy, racism, sexism, misogyny, prejudice, and discrimination. I came to understand about power and the construction of an unequal and unfair world that benefited some and disadvantaged others. I had names to put to what had occurred to me, like domestic violence. I came to understand that it happened because of the cultural way we teach boys to be in control and competitive, while we teach girls to be cooperative and to desire a knight to save and care for them, rather than raising girls to know that they, too, can be powerful.

So, while college was so great, it was the life lessons that helped me be successful in college. But I am a lifelong learner, so I am still reading and learning about life. I am learning how to be an elderly person, because the world doesn’t often see us as competent and capable after a certain age. But how could we cease to be valuable with all that life has taught us that we could not learn in books? So, experience is still the great teacher. I hope today’s children are allowed to experience the suffering and mistakes that will prepare them for the world and for the colleges they will attend in the future.

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