All through school years I never felt privileged in any way .. I worked and paid for my own way, every single day of my tuition, I paid for it, not my parents either .. I asked for nothing .. but they did help with some side things like room and board during summers when I commuted from home to work. They also helped me swing my first little car .. which I paid mostly for .. I paid about 75%.
I got a total of $200 assistance through all of my college years .. a state four year college. Two hundred bucks during four years .. that’s it $200.00
I could have had loans but didn’t. As long as I had my job I squeaked by .. and I mean squeaked. No pizza, no partying .. nothing .. just gas for my car, study and sleep .. and painting pipes. Miles of water treatment pipes, steam pipes feeding the turbines, ash sluice pipes and acid lines and condensate water pipes. Some were thirty six inches in diameter .. others less than an inch. This was my college life .. my college years .. no extra privilege. None. Zero. Zilch. I spent more time with the workers at the plant than with my peers at school. There was an old chair inside one of the instrument panels in the water treatment room where I could keep warm and study .. during breaks. Another in the screen house where the river water entered the plant. I spent lots of time in that screen house .. it always smelled like fish. Dead river fish caught on the screens.
As far as tuition .. I worked at a local public utility painting pipes for total of five years .. including the summers before and after college and and saved and paid it and got done entirely with that job. Thank you to that utility for allowing me to stay on so long .. and work weird hours. It saved me.
….. the only ones who were privileged, the gals in college who hung around professor’s offices and sucked up to the the instructors .. there was that gang who constantly sat in hallway next to professors doors .. usually pre-professional gals who wanted a leg up on getting good recommendation for their applications.
I know this for a fact because I had some of them for my lab partners and some were dumb as molasses .. they copied my lab manual with no remorse .. I let them because at that time I was probably fitting Mangina category. I knew not what I was doing letting them get best of me.
I was in the same classes as many of them for years and actually knew them quite well .. some were complete groupies, on and off campus hanging around their advisors .. it made me nauseous.
I’m not crying, utilities pay relatively well, actually, very well .. and I’m also not saying this was a good experience .. I was tired for four years and never wasted money on one single pizza and never socialized other than at work. The only socializing on campus that I had time for was to be a member of Chemistry club and if I had the night off was able to attend their functions. I was blessed by the fact that the utility job paid well enough to get me through each semester. I wouldn’t recommend this lifestyle necessarily; however, I also wouldn’t recommend getting loaded down with loans .. even for a profession. It can be a long way back no matter which way you go. Taking a toll on health vs paying for twenty years or more.
Was it worth it? .. I don’t know other than as soon as I finished school, at the end of following summer, I was hired by that same power company for a new position and worked in their offices for a number of years .. giving me a start in life .. before moving on to another offer and tuition.
Without that pipe painting job, the recommendation from the engineers I worked with for over four years, and the schooling .. combined .. I wouldn’t have had that initial chance for the first better job. I guess it all worked out without any special privilege related to my race or color or creed.
SH3LLZ 1 year, 9 months ago.
