FINAL DRAFT: Education Narrative

            To begin my education narrative, I need to explain that I was a successful student in high school. Meaning, I earned a 3.9 grade point average, I played three sports, and I was a member of the National Honors Society. The expectation for me was to go to a four-year college, graduate in those four years, then go on to graduate school. When deciding which college to attend I set my heart on a small, private, liberal arts college, called Lewis & Clark College. At the time, Lewis & Clark (LC) was the perfect school for me: it afforded a small class environment where I would get to know my professors, it had a laid-back culture, and I was able to continue playing softball. Even though LC was not the right college for me, it has given me essential experiences. My experience at LC has taught me to go against expectations and that if I am not enjoying the experience I am not going to continue.

            For much of the start of my career at LC I thought to myself, “it’s going to get better”. The first time I thought that was my first day on campus. Now, I had visited LC two times previously but I only had the typical rehearsed speech of the tour guide and the admissions counselor to sell me on the college. On that first day I was able to get a sense of who the student population is for the first time. I went to party that first night with my roommate and a couple people in my orientation group. When I first stepped in I saw around twenty people casually sitting on torn up couches, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, passing around a joint, and trying to impress people with the music they had recently discovered. I knew that the LC population had the reputation for being “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians” (Princeton Review), and I honestly thought I would fit in with that culture. In attempt to assimilate myself to the environment I grabbed a beer and joined a conversation. I took sips of the warm beer and listened to my fellow classmates’ conversations. I joined in once in awhile but I was content on finding out more about my new peers. I left the party with a bad taste in my mouth: the Pabst was awful. Also, I had not been able to find commonalities with the students I interacted with. I had been unable to relate to anyone I talked to that night. Despite my first LC party experience, I was optimistic that I would find students similar to me: students who I could become friends with.

            My friends at LC came in the form of the softball team. Although I differed from most of my teammates there was strong bond that only comes from being on a competitive team together. For the first year I was satisfied with the friends I had made until I realized that most of the girls only attended LC because of softball. Most of the softball team, and most of the athletes as well, did not like the rest of the “hipster” student population, and only go to LC because they could continue playing their sport at a Division III level. My thoughts on this were confirmed when my coach, after hearing about a girl quitting softball to study in Europe for a semester, said to me, “We recruit you to play softball, not to stop playing because your studies require you to.” This comment had me reevaluating why I was at LC. At the time, I had been considering going to Africa for a semester because LC is known for their Overseas Programs. I decided on LC because the academics and the location appealed to me, and it was a bonus that I could continue playing softball; it was not the other way around. Lewis & Clark Athletics promotes being a student first, but it quickly became clear that student athletes are expected to be as committed to their sport as they are to their academics. This was not the case for me. I knew that academics were far more important than a sport. A sport teaches how to work with others, how to be competitive, and it is fun for those four years. However, how well you do in college academics affects what graduate schools you can go to, and what jobs you can be hired for. Being a successful student was so much more important to me than playing softball that the experiences of having my coach tell me I could not have an academic experience because of softball was completely off-putting.

            I had many experiences similar to these two that pointed me in the direction of leaving LC after the first year, but I decided to stay for my sophomore year. I remembered how excited I was in high school to go to college at LC, and how confident I was that it was the right school for me. The thoughts I had about LC when I was sixteen were overshadowing the experiences I had after a year of actually attending LC. What was also stopping me from transferring were my thoughts on how other people would perceive me transferring. I would let down the softball team and I would let down my professor (who I had started doing research for). So after the first year I told myself again that it would get better, and that I knew LC was still the right college for me. The second year was not better, if not worse, than the first year. I became so distracted and unhappy with how I did not like LC that my grades started slipping and I spent increasingly more time alone. At that point, I let all of my fear about transferring go and dropped out of Lewis & Clark. I did not even have a new college to go to, I just knew that I was never going to be happy attending LC. I broke out of the expectations set by myself, and the people around me, so I could find the place I truly belong. I learned that by setting myself free from expectations I could find who I really am and where I truly belong.