Enabling the self through conscious reflection

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: Risks of escaping reality through binge-watching

A couple of weeks ago Netflix released the entire series of “Gilmore Girls”—a crowd-pleasing, Bechdel -test-passing dramedy infamous for its quick witticisms. The release was undoubtedly one of my (many) favorite moments in Netflix history.
I am definitely not alone—at least half of the many people I’ve mentioned “Gilmore Girls” to recently have also confessed to binge watching it now that it is available to them.
There is something about this show that makes binging on it particularly concerning to me. The two protagonists, Lorelai and Rory, along with many of the supporting cast—even the seemingly malicious ones like Paris—are all relatable and heartwarming people. I do not doubt that people like them exist; in fact, I strive to surround myself with such good-natured people. Yet I am generally aware that not everyone is harmless and quirky.
The entire town of Stars Hollow—the setting for “Gilmore Girls”—is completely unimaginable to me. Perhaps I am too much of a jaded New Yorker, but the existence of a simultaneously working class and cutesy neighborhood seems like a stretch.
Stars Hollow is a place, where all of the people are loveable and funny, the most dangerous person is a rebellious teenager, and everyone gets your obscure Velvet Underground and David Lynch references, so why is it’s depiction so addicting?
Aside from the picturesque snow scenes, even the tones of the show are warm. A theme song by Carole King lulls us into this sweet town and the music in between scenes is calm and friendly, too.
So what does it say when students, as busy as we are, make time to binge on a show that depicts an ideal reality? “Gilmore Girls” is by no means thrilling—everything moves as slowly as one would expect in a small town.
As much as I appreciate the quick dialogue, I expect it to be alienating to some people who don’t get the weirdly specific and often outdated references. Yet I haven’t met one person who had any strong feelings against the show. Hell, as much as I critique it, you can bet I’m looking forward to an episode as soon as I finish writing this.
There are surely more risky escape mechanisms than “Gilmore Girls”—our parents should be thankful we aren’t doing bath salts or anything, right? However, that doesn’t change the idea that when we watch this show set in an ideal world we are escaping from a not so ideal one. That is perhaps why binging on it can feel so de-stressing.
It isn’t constructive to escape, and not everyone has the privilege to do it with the quick act of watching a TV show. I don’t reserve the right to tell anyone whether they should escape for a little bit. But I will say that perhaps it might be constructive to confront those things that we wish to escape, without the aid of Netflix. Perhaps there will be no need to escape into a falsely idealistic world if we concentrate more on crafting a real one.

Doing it wrong

Enabling the self through conscious reflection

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

October 30, 2014

This past weekend, I was one of 500 student activists who attended the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference at Tufts. I attended a workshop on Black Liberation, which introduced the following quotation to us: “Caring for myself is not self indulgence, it is an act of self preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

These are the words of Audre Lorde, the renowned black, feminist and queer poet. These are words that are important for any woman, person of color or anyone else who has ever been marginalized in any capacity, to hear.

We exist in a society that marks idleness and lack of activity as laziness, acts of self-care as selfish. Marx argues that conscious labor is essential to our humanity. I propose that in addition, conscious acts of meditation and peace, as opposed to unthoughtful ones, are just as essential. Too often my breaks from work consist of scrolling through a social media feed, or going to a party I feel an underwhelming desire to go to.

In our action-oriented lives, there is too much time spent doing and not enough time spent thinking. We are always expected to define who we are and what we want to do, but not allotted enough time to really think about these things in an independent way. We tire ourselves out trying to do everything we can fit on our plate, and so we are not able to give ourselves over fully to those things and people we really care about.

The system we are a part of privileges a very specific type of person. We all know him well: the straight, white, upper class, cisgendered man. As a believer in the whole “gender/sexuality are a spectrum” thing, I’m unsure if this elusive man really exists. The important thing is, however, he exists as an ideal. Not an ideal in the way Beyoncé is an ideal because she seems perfect, but an ideal in the way that it is easiest to succeed when you are that aforementioned person. People who do not fit that ideal often feel the weight of the system working against them, consciously or not. So to care for ourselves, in a society that has, in some respects, failed to care for us, is like Lorde said. It is an act of political warfare.

Preserving ourselves, caring for ourselves, spending time thinking about ourselves—these actions, when done consciously, make us better fit to serve others. There are endless ways to actively engage in a healing process, whether it is through reconnecting with nature, taking a yoga class, going for a run, or just being alone and thinking about who we are. The important thing is that we attempt to feel some sort of renewal and introspection and resist a society that tells us we must be productive at all times.

We often partake in processes that have the potential to be healing, but unless we go in with the intention of trying to revive something within ourselves, they won’t fulfill their healing potential. As I attempt to approach life in a manner of “self-preservation,” I encourage readers to do the same. We can’t be agents of change or resistors of oppression unless we enable ourselves to be resilient, and caring for ourselves in a conscious manner is essential to that.

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