Thoughts on Senior Year: an Account Un-fit for Office of Admissions

[Early this week, we all received an email encouraging us to share our “Wittenberg story,” which would probably be used to advertise the University; thus, I thought it fitting that I’d share mine.]

(Courtesy of Wittenberg Office of Admissions) 

            Senior year is rapidly speeding up, yet quickly coming to an end. It is indeed the most cliché paradox, but true nevertheless. In a quick nine months, my time at Wittenberg will be over. I’ll have spent my last afternoon in Hollenbeck, my last late evening in the library, played my last intramural basketball game in HPER — as many people have before me, and as many will after.

            However, because I’ll be the first person in my extended family to graduate college, leaving Wittenberg also means blooming into the fruition of a lot of grueling hard work on the part of my parents, especially my father. It will thus be a moment filled with nostalgia, yet a moment filled with pride.

            While at Wittenberg, I feel, as many probably do, that I have come into myself — as a student, a writer, and a human being. Wittenberg has challenged me in many ways; it has, in fact, even forced me to challenge Wittenberg itself.

            It is tough, for example, to reckon with the fact that my education has come at the expense of others, and by “others” I mean the housekeepers — those we subject to live on a poverty wage. I certainly should have done more; or, more accurately, should have done something.

            It is also tough to look back on my education and realize it was ultimately a product I had to buy; the most fulfilling time of my life — intellectually, socially, personally — was but a commodity. It will be but tougher to face the fact that many people will go without such an experience, and for no reason of their own. Indeed, these are all privileged problems to reckon with, but challenges nevertheless, and one is never quite sure how to handle them.

            Paradoxically, it has been the most fulfilling aspects of my “Wittenberg experience” — as admission’s office brands it — that have forced me to interrogate the problematic — no, rather, unjust — aspects of Wittenberg. To put it another way, for me, Wittenberg’s success has highlighted the institution’s absolute failures. [Certainly, the last two tensions I’ve listed above are not exclusive to Wittenberg; they are part of the educational system at-large.]

            And, unfortunately, it seems the most powerful thing that Wittenberg has taught me is that one’s most powerful vote in this society is with one’s checkbook. It is for this reason that I can’t genuinely say that, if I had a chance to do it all over again, I would choose Wittenberg again. Instead, as this administration did with the housekeepers, I would have made a market decision that reflected my values, and chosen a school that doesn’t perpetuate poverty.

            I couldn’t have asked for better professors, for more growth, more camaraderie; I, in short, truly could not have asked for a better college experience — but I also shouldn’t experience those things at the expense of others.

            Is one really able to find fulfillment while walking on the backs of others?