Georgia State University

I'm graduating from here tomorrow, I think. At GSU grades are due after graduation and my professor for the class I'm worried about won't get back to me so I've worked six long and hard years to walk and I'm not even sure I'm actually going to graduate when I do which is a complete travesty. I've given up the past six years of my life to get my degree and won't even be able to celebrate during a ceremony I paid $50 for along with an $80 cap and down, not to mention the thousands that I am now in debt. I just feel broken at this point and like the very extensive amount of time and money I spent at GSU is ending with a harsh slap in the face and a powerful kick to the bleak hobo-ridden curb.



My degree is in Film and Video and while some classes were beneficial, many of them, as I assume is the case at any college, are mind-numbing. You memorize stuff, spit it out on a Scantron or superficial essay, then forget it. Now you're educated, or rather, you're learning to more willingly jump through hoops for your masters and follow orders regurgitating and writing things that make you completely miserable in the process. Sure, there are good professors here that have very in-depth lectures on course subject matter, but there are also a few whose lessons and assignments do virtually nothing to truly expand your understanding of what they're supposedly teaching their students.



A couple of my film classes, for instance, consisted of making short films and having them ripped apart by the class. Sure, making them was good practice and I received some good feedback on my work, but couldn't I have done that outside the setting of this institution? I'm also an English minor and your average writing class is the same empty void: read assigned and student works and subjectively hyper-analyze and critique them. Can you not practice writing outside of the sterile brick and concrete confines of Georgia State? I guess not.



Don't get me wrong, I've intermittently enjoyed my time incubating and postponing employment here and did like some aspects of GSU. They have cool speakers from time to time (you pay for them in fees), decent events (more fees), a somewhat nice gym (fees), and other amenities that you can expect to receive at today's colleges but overall do I feel intelligent and optimistic after graduating? No, instead I feel mangled, old, weak, and straddled by a mountain of debt as I near my completion on the GSU assembly line. Maybe since I'm so educated now I forgot what it was like to not be, or maybe I've just been slowly having my mind molded by the powerful force that is the college institution. One last note if you're still forcing yourself to take them. I lived on campus freshman year and I would not recommend living in an overpriced dorm since you will be at risk of sharing a room with a complete sociopath. You've been warned.