“Hey check this out, we have a college girl here,” said the nurse. He did not mean bad but the tone of his voice made “college girl” sound harsh for me. At that time, I was in a behavioral hospital, wearing one of those blue sloppy hospital gowns, which made me look more like a patient but feel less patient. Sitting in the common room listening in and observing, I realized that I am the only college student there.
“So I heard that you are in college?,” an old woman asked as she approached me with a “show-me” look on her face. “Santa Clara University, freshman, computer science major,” I answered with the “like you care” tone. “My Jesus, that’s one of the expensive ones. Why you go to college?” She threw me off with this one million-dollar question and her amazement, then she left.
But, then I realized that that was a really good question: Wait, why do I go to college? This question made me think a lot and even made the time in that horrible hospital a little less boring.
When I was thinking about this question, first I realized that college, for a nineteen year old girl like me, is a place where I belong at this moment. I am not saying that the SCU-campus is the only place I can go but believe me when I say this: my college life is the thing I missed badly when I was in that miserable treatment, not the pepperoni pizza or In-N-Out Burger. And I guess you guys will have a deeper feeling after I show you the differences from living in campus and living in a behavioral health hospital(where I was under control every single second).
First, a superficial reason came to mind when I pondered on the question of why did I choose to go to college: it definitely provides me a sense of belonging and freedom. Not to mention, when I asked some other girls where they would go if the hospital discharged them they replied with answers like, “I don’t know, maybe find a shelter.”, or “I just want some Heroin, I don’t really care.” Compared with these, my college campus life sounds not only normal but really comforting, peaceful and harmless. Well, At least I know I have a place to go and deep inside, I want to go back deadly.
Both of them just finished high school and never got to go to college. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that college is the savior for people but I think college is one of the most important creations that could make people’s life better(At least, it is a place where you can stay and live in.)
Ok now let us talk about why I was in that behavioral hospital which I guess is the thing that you guys desire to know most(maybe even care more about that than why I go to college!!!) So I was in that hospital because I became really depressed after several things happened and all these upsetting things made me feel despaired and hopeless. My friends were worrying that I may hurt myself under that helpless mood, so they convinced me to go to the hospital to seek professional help. Seriously, at first, I thought it would be great that if I could get some help like how to regulate my emotions and get out of my shadow fast, but, the hospital was not like the way I thought.
Enough background on why I was in the behavioral hospital. Now let’s get back to the topic we are focusing on right now: why do I go to college?
I kept thinking this is a tricky but meaningful question which was asked by that old woman when I was eating the cold potatoes as lunch. And then my memory revived and some resources I read before came to my mind.
- Michelle Obama mentioned that African American women with a college degree live an average of six-and-a-half years longer than those without when she was giving the speech at Bowie State University. And here is the link for the speech if you want to learn more about it. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/commencement-speech-addresses-2013-michelle-obama-bowie-state-19203266
This is just a survey result but from my personal experience in that behavioral hospital, I definitely think that I could live longer than that “Heroin Girl”(I know it is mean to say this but we all know that heroin is extremely dangerous and harmful to people).
I believe that college is a place for me to have a better judgement of what is right and wrong. I could have a better understanding to this world and myself in college community and not get lost easily.
Guided by the experienced professors and advisors, we can obtain the right suggestions and directions in our life and even though we may still make mistakes, we could correct them in time.
- Frederick Douglass once said:”education means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of the man into glorious light of truth, the only light by which men can be free.”
GIF from the movie “Harry Potter” I finally realized that how much I missed reading books, doing exercise and having communication with friends and professor when I was in the behavioral hospital. I even desperately wanted to go back to my classes and use critical thinking to contribute my ideas during the class talking time. All the critical thinking I could use effectively right now in this hospital is try to figure out that whether the food is expired or not!!!!
The books I read in college showed me this world in various aspects; the critical thinking I use everyday in college enabled me to learn, practice, and talk about things in different ways; the professional knowledge I obtain in college offered me a better career future and personal development.
- As a girl I believe that college is the time for me to figure out the correctness of the things that my culture and people around me have injected into me since I was young.
”Girls are told they should have a good husband when they were young. And some people even believe that’s the life-goal for a girl,” Sheryl Sandberg said in her article. “What would you do if you weren’t not afraid.” I cannot believe that my mother used to say the same thing just as her mom said to her: keep an eye on your marriage from a young age or the good men will be taken. Sometimes I even felt that my parents emphasized my relationships with boys more than my academic achievements. (I am only nineteen!!)
But, after I attended college, I had a better critical thinking ability and had a better understanding of myself. I began to know what I really want and try to work on it. So college, at this time, is a place for me, or maybe for all women to think things through and seek more parts of ourselves that we did not know before. Living in campus on my own offered me the chance to establish my own thoughts, and then I won’t be easily convinced by any random ideas from the outside world and also give me the chance to rethink what I have been told when I was young.
The famous feminist Emma Watson’s speech about gender equality was impressive for me. Here is the link if you want to watch the whole video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkjW9PZBRfk
She argued that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities and also encouraged all the females to realize their precious values; that they never less worth than males.
To sum up, I believe these are the reasons that I figured out why I go to college and as a college student, I want to say this loudly: Becoming a college student is the decision I made which I would never feel regret for making.
The experience in that hospital was terrible, but it provided me time to think about this meaningful question and the answers I found out would definitely make my college life more significant.
College is not a medallion for my life, but it is a ticket which could help me enter a better life for sure.