American Colleges Murder Artists

Sweeney Hall SJSU Outside

I went through some depression while I was at SJSU and ranked up $20,000 in student loans.  Sadly this was not only a waste of time because I decided to peruse a Child Development degree at De Anza College, rather than my Creative Writing degree, but I couldn't complete hardly any of my classes because of how depressed I was.


The only problem I to have are getting the federal government to find my taxes for 2011.  I cannot simply print out my tax forms from Turbotax, no, they want documents from the government.   I've tried all my addresses, talked to a representative who said all the tax forms are not in yet, so there is a chance I will not be going to school in the fall.

Sweeney Hall Inside
What am I paying for?

If the school wants to encourage students it should be relatively simple for students who apply, especially when you have to have official documents from the federal government.  The government is slow and still cannot find my information.  I'm just so frustrated.


I believe De Anza is making their students do some of the legwork because of the lack of staff and horrible education cuts.  I just wish they chose another way to reduce their costs, because I cannot see how this is making a student's life any easier.


To go even further when a student works part-time it leaves less time for studying.  But he needs to work to pay off his bills, unless he lives at home or has financial support from his parents.  If he does need to work, he still doesn't earn enough to pay the bills and has to have a loan.  This makes the student acquire debt.

Coffee Backpack
by Rocketpacks1

Yes, education is an investment, but at what cost?  Lack of health care for the student, sleep deprivation, emotional stress, poor diet, long work hours, financial debt all promote health issues spanning well beyond college years.  


After a student acquires all of this stress and debt there is no other option but to "opt to major in fields that will give them more marketable skills in the current job market: Think computer science, information technology, and engineering" (From the interview with Andrew Delbanco on NPR).  The artists are dead because society has murdered them financially, so will only rich children shape the art in America?


I think all of this helps promote the stress and unhealthy fervor for money.  I plan not to pay back my student loans for as long as possible, because I do not think my higher education helped me peruse the goals I wanted.  I felt they threw a bunch of English classes together and some writing classes, only 15/48 units were writing classes; not even half the classes you are required to take focus on your personal writing ability.

by Axstrat

Perhaps this is just the major I chose, and changed after I was so unhappy, but if colleges cannot make an effort to help liberal arts students making a living in a field they love, what is the point of earning a degree?

Mixing Politics with Religion and Instant Gatification

I was thinking about my old friend and the cruelest words he ever said to me, ‘A liberal-Christian is a Christian who doesn't have any beliefs.’ The fact was I did believe in God but I interpreted the Bible differently, because I realized most of it was just opinion written down, an age ago, by men. I don’t mean to bash men, in fact I think they are the luckiest beings in existence, especially when they have to deal with an intelligent woman.

My question is why is there so much attention on mixing religion and politics? Not all Christians are Republican and not all Pagans are Democrat, that is political stereotyping and it’s wrong. I just wanted to worship God and believe prostitution and drugs should be legalized, but when most Christians heard my views they labeled me as a radical feminist-liberal-Democrat-wiener and attempted to right my beliefs to the proper order.

In reality I don’t consider myself as a real liberal, I want people to own guns, I want the government to butt out of private affairs, I want politicians to vote for the good of the whole and not themselves, but I want health care, I want to legalize illegal substances to pay off Americas deficit, I want my car to run on a dream, I want my freedoms damnit and that’s that.

Honestly, I don’t know what category I fit into, you could say I’m Libertarian, a very enlightened concept, but like Communism, when people are involved it fails horribly. People are greedy and selfish, I don’t blame this on an evil force, but American upbringing has gone to a very dark place, where everything is met with instant gratification and a whine.

I’m bad, I want instant gratification too, but working in retail has altered my thoughts quite a bit because I have seen a side of humanity, the IwantthisnowexactlyhowIwantitandthecustomerisalwaysright! side. Instant doesn’t exist, it takes time for things to grow, like my garden, and I am so lucky I learned the lessons of using my hands and smashing my fingers with tolls through the blood and dirt of shoveling.

This instant quick satisfaction also affects politics because we the people don’t see much into the future beyond four years, especially young people, if they vote at all. I’ve voted in every election from presidential to local, except for California’s May thing, and I’m proud. But when I speak to others my age, they blow it off with an anarchist attitude and then complain about their government…stupid. Not all of my age group is like this, but holy-flying-monkey-farts, if you want to change something, google it and then vote on it please!

Nobody wants to do anything anymore and it frustrated me to no end because I’m a natural fighter for my beliefs and rights to a bitter end. This instant gratification is ruining our humanity, nature is, humans are, everything runs on its own schedule, but we humans keep on trying to alter things, speed up, got to school, work and die, that’s it! I don’t want to live life for instant then I’m done with it, I want to live life like a Native American, but with air conditioning and good health care, where the sun is the clock and the seasons move slowly and effortlessly, where everything blends like a beautiful painting.

Whose with me? Who wants to live life to the seasons and not seconds? Who wants to think a head and learn from the past? Who wants to change this world for the better?

Blessed be.