Learning to ignore practicality in a liberal arts education

Doing it wrong: Crises in cultural identity reflect past and present injustices

One of the three essay topics in Bowdoin’s supplement to the Common Application has to do with the applicant’s connection to a place. I have always felt connected to the city I grew up in, but being a person of color who is constantly asked “where I’m from” (whatever that means), I always felt as though I was supposed to be connected to somewhere else.
This summer, I took a trip with my parents to Puerto Rico, where my paternal ancestry supposedly lies. I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with my great-grandmother, stay in the house her late husband built, and look through photos of my older family members in their youthful prime. I met so many people who told me fantastical tales of my family that I felt like I was in a Gabriel García Márquez novel.
Yet I have felt uneasy with the idea that I am “from” this place. Looking at the different shades of my family members, I have wondered how far back I would have to go in our lineage to figure out if we were related to the colonists or the colonized, the enslaved or the slave owners? It probably wasn’t just one or the other.
As a child growing up in a racist society, I wanted to hinder my color. I wanted to seem as white as possible. I used to rationalize to myself that because I was a relatively “lighter” person of color, I was probably more related to Spaniards than African slaves or Taino Indians. And that made me feel better about my identity. I obviously now realize how backwards and screwed up this mentality was. But this state of mind still exists in many communities, and its remnants within me are troubling.
As I’ve matured, I have come to accept and embrace my identity as a person of color and mixed ethnicity to the point that I resent the colonial history of the places I am from. It disturbs me that the name of my great-grandfather’s hometown in is a Spanish name, that I have to speak the language of conquistadors, and that my mother follows a Christian religion which was violently imposed on her ancestors. These circumstances are not just facts of history, they are also incidents of trauma. And the trauma did not end after Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America gained their “independence.”
I don’t know the facts and figures of the Puerto Rican economy. I’ve heard that it’s relatively “high income.” But it is still a place with poor masses—men selling mangoes on every block, beggars outside of Walgreens, and people working odd jobs to make ends meet. People exoticize this tiny island; tourists fly in and stay at resorts and never really understand the reality of the place. It is important to realize that other countries are not your playground nor your charity case—they deserve the freedom to be autonomous entities.
Things in Puerto Rico are not cheap. Gas is expensive and fresh produce is especially pricey. Fast food is everywhere and people readily support those establishments.
The Westernization of the island is especially disturbing because of how easily it is accepted. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and, the way I see it, it is practically as colonized as it was when the Spaniards were in control. The people of Puerto Rico are used as a vehicle for Western interests. I couldn’t feel the strong connection to this island that I always yearned for when I visited because I was born in a place that profits from and actively contributes to its poverty and idleness.
What is necessary in places like Puerto Rico is recognition of how the people have been wronged throughout history. So many countries cannot sustain themselves in this world economy because none of what they produce is for themselves. Puerto Ricans are made to feel grateful that they can freely enter the U.S., but don’t realize that they sacrifice so much freedom in their own country.
The processes of exploitation, racism and colonialism do not go away with time. We don’t live in a post-racial or post-colonial society. We still live in a society that is designed to make the historically underprivileged fail. Those issues will become undone with honesty and dialogue, with a realization that things must change with thoughtful action.

Doing it wrong: Removing application fees

Since my freshman year, I have worked at the Upward Bound office at Bowdoin. Upward Bound is a federally funded program that provides college preparation services, summer programs and academic counseling to low-income students. Every year, I help out with sending fee waiver requests to colleges on behalf of students in the program.
During the college application process, these students, are lucky enough to have a support system and to know that they can apply for fee waivers. An application fee for Bowdoin is $60; Stanford ranks highest in application fees with a $90 price tag. Applying to around 10 schools could cost you upwards of $500, maybe even more.
Imagine being a low-income student faced with this prospect. What would you do in that situation? When I was applying to colleges, I knew I couldn’t afford to pay application fees, and there were two college counselors for a class of almost 1,000 students at my high school—getting one of them to help me with this was next to impossible.
It took a frustrating amount of research and explaining for me to figure out ways to apply to the schools I wanted to without placing a burden on my family.
But what if a student is too ashamed to ask? That situation is hardly out of the question. Having to say you can’t afford something, especially as a teenager, is not an easy thing to do. Applying to college, trying to give yourself a fighting chance at intellectual development, or at least a career, shouldn’t be something you have to pay for.
The idea that we have to pay to go to school is questionable in the first place, but paying a fee so that you can be told whether or not you are worth attending and paying even more money? How is that in any way fair to people who dread the cost of paying for college in the first place? Imposing an application fee is basically a warning to low-income people: education isn’t cheap.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was finalizing my study abroad application, I was once again confronted by an application fee. Since I am privileged enough to have the knowledge that application fees are somewhat bypassable, I sent an email the day the application was due, explaining why I couldn’t pay the fee.
I was relieved to find out, around a week later, that the program was fine with this. But for that week, I was anxious that I wouldn’t get into the program because I hadn’t paid the fee. People in economically needy situations have enough on their plate regarding finances—worrying about whether they will be able to pursue an opportunity shouldn’t be one of them.
Removing an application fee is a legitimate effort to increase economic diversity. If colleges really cared about promoting diversity, they would try to make it as stress-free as possible for anyone from any economic situation to apply. Application fees filter out students who are either unaware of how to get around paying them, or are too embarrassed to express their need.

Doing it wrong

Learning to ignore practicality in a liberal arts education

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

September 26, 2014

As students living in a time of relative crisis regarding the economy and employment, we are constantly reminded of how hopeless our post-college lives are bound to be. In fact, one of my professors basically told my classmates and me that we were better off taking online classes.

Those of us who don’t major in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects are even further ridiculed for our “foolish” attitude regarding education. “You need to be more practical!” online blogs and our parents shout simultaneously. And sometimes, it’s hard to explain or even justify our majors when they don’t seem to lead to a specific career path.

We need to question what we even mean by practical. Is majoring in economics practical because it might lead to a lucrative career in finance, or because you will be able to learn from and question economic processes? Is a major in computer science practical because you want to list coding skills on your resumé, or because you want to learn a new way of understanding and organizing information? To value practicality in the first way is to take a liberal arts education for granted.

We are not lacking in intelligence or work ethic here at Bowdoin. What we lack is a sense of curiosity, enthusiasm and openness. You shouldn’t come to Bowdoin with a fixed idea of what you want to study. Arguably, the reason schools like Bowdoin exist is to offer alternatives to a rigid approach to education.

We are lucky enough to have mobility in our studies. In my two and a half years here, I’ve taken classes in subjects ranging from oceanography to museum studies. While my parents seemed concerned that I didn’t have a major until recently, I learned to revel in the confusion of seeing the world in different ways.

We have four years here to explore anything that piques our interest, and we are privileged enough to have amazing professors, facilities and peers to help us do just that. We shouldn’t treat our education as just a means to a job or as just another section on our LinkedIn profile.

What makes us human are our abilities to consciously create and to think independently. When we prioritize doing what is expected of us and qualifying for a certain position, we aren’t using our full potential at all.

Working hard and memorizing facts won’t help us explore our intellectual capacities or think deeply.

On a different note, while students should feel encouraged to explore their options, educational institutions should be more accepting of those who don’t fit the well-rounded mold. To expect someone to be a committed athlete, an excellent student, a musician and biology expert is asking too much. Perhaps some students fit this mold, but what about people who are just passionate about one thing? Why is it that schools want so badly for their students to be everything?

Once again, I must stress how unique our situation is at Bowdoin. Think of how few people in the world get to go to college, and out of them, how few go to liberal arts schools.

If you came to college to learn a skill and leave with a job offer, you came to the wrong school. There are plenty of technical schools that will do that for you for a lot less money.

If I’m not mistaken, we’re here for something beyond that, which Bowdoin kindly outlines for us in the “Offer of the College:” “To be at home in all lands and all ages”. That is an offer that means a lot, and you won’t take advantage of it by sticking to a comfort zone of practicality and stressing out over a B+.

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