I’m a junior at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. I’m originally from Zionsville, IN. And yes, it is actually as quaint as it sounds. We have two tanks that we own for the sole purpose of parading up and down the (2) block span of our downtown metropolis once a year. We have more churches and banks than Starbucks(es) than I’ve seen in a one block stretch of Manhattan. So I came here, to Brooklyn, because I wanted to write. I convinced my parents that it was a wise investment of my college savings to be here in New York City (or, rather, now, Bed Stuy— which is separate than any part of Brooklyn or Manhattan ps because I have to hold mace in my hand and a stun gun in the other when I walk out of or into my apartment. Really, I really do that. (I really have to do that). But now I’m $100,000 deep into Pratt. DIRT DEEP. I am a slave to an Institution. I am taking (currently) 14 credits of Pratt, next semester it will be 16, the past four semesters it has been 20, and right now I work one real job (part-time) and have three freelancing gigs as well to pay for school, apartment, food, etc. I work all the time. I breathe work. I dream about work. (Actually I think that’s just called having anxiety but that’s besides the point). And so what I’ve realized and what I want to convey is the point that college is not a decision you have to make. It’s an investment. And with $145,000 (by the time I graduate) you could do the following instead:
1) By a purdy nice house. Say, in Asheville. Or, Zionsville. Or, like, Austin or something.
2) Start your own business.
3) Buy 145,000 $1 pizza slices from that $1 per pizza slice place on St. Marks, which is roughly 397 years of $1 pizza, like, only if you could do that… physically. But still.
(The idea being that you don’t have to go to college, and perhaps, right now, should choose not to.) But in the present moment, me, Averie Timm, am stuck at a crossroads… in that I’m not able to afford my senior year as a Pratt Institute soul-sucked student but also am not able to mentally contemplate dropping out, or rather, being a college drop out, at this time. (GASP what would my parents think…) SO. What to do. What to do. The following options prevail: A) Ask for more money (in loans, private loans, from Pratt) and continue to go further in debt B) Win the lottery C) Drop out and get a job.
Advice, Tumblr patrons? Email me with suggestions, words of wisdom, etc. @ atimm405@gmail.com
