Old School

I met yesterday morning with the Executive Director of Alumni and Development Programs from my old school, Washington University in St. Louis^[1], for a bit of breakfast and conversation on the subject of ...

Well, I'm still not quite sure what the purpose of the meeting was, but we covered a lot of interesting ground in regards to getting ready to send kids off to college, figuring out which school they ought to attend, how to fill out applications, how much financial aid they are going to need, and what to do with them once they're out of the house.

It was quite fun, made even more so by the venue we had chosen for our little discussion: Panera Bread Company. The smell of fresh-roasted coffee, the cinnamon and apple spices of the pastries, the delicious breads, all just out of the oven and melt-in-your-mouth soft. It was hard to pick only one item from the menu, but since he was buying my breakfast, it didn't seem proper to bankrupt him on the first round.^[2]

Jim is a very nice man with a good conversational style, which means that he asks good questions and listens carefully and makes nice remarks about the family and the job, and doesn't interrupt when I'm on a roll, spouting my usual brand of nonsense.^[3] He did answer a few of my questions about the school. I was particularly keen on the news about the College of Engineering.

We visited there a couple of summers ago on our trip back from Yosemite; I was able to drive around the school and show the kids where I lived and where I had my classes and how much of it has changed in the last thirty years. Hard to believe that I started college back in '81, until I look around at the campus and see how much of it has changed ... and how much of that change looks like it's been there quite a while. New buildings, missing buildings, the light rail system^[4], trees which were once young now bent with age. Jim showed me the layout for the new Engineering building which will be built behind the "old" Engineering building I knew and loved -- which was brand-spanking new back in '81, but is now ancient and out-of-date.

The campus itself was built on the site of the 1904 World's Fair^[5], so it's been there just over a hundred years. But it was actually founded back in 1854^[6], so it's been in existence for quite a long time.

People still find it amusing when I mention that my main reason for choosing WashU was due to the food choices they provided; but, honestly, that's all I remember from the visit with the recruiter way back in '81. They showed me the layout of the cafeteria, which was split out into about a dozen different eateries, all of them offering a different style of food: traditional, Italian, Mediterranean, Asian, deli, and so on. It was a novel concept at the time. And quite enticing to someone whose high school breakfast consisted of Pop Tarts and a glass of milk. Little did I suspect that all that wonderful food was coming from the same kitchen, which meant that it was all equally bad. And that it would all be covered with pimentoes.^[7]

WashU wasn't my first choice. I had CalTech at the top of the list, and some other school (I think it was MIT) as second. But they didn't want me. Something about only wanting someone from the Top 5 of the Class^[8]. I was number 6 in my class (out of four hundred something). And I had scored very well on the pSAT, which almost got me a National Merit Scholarship. Almost. WashU saw my transcripts and offered to make good on that National Merit Scholarship, which sealed the deal.

If I had to do it all over again, of course, I don't think I would've gone so far away. As a young teen guy, my main motivation was to get away from home, be my own person, make my own life. And getting out of town, out of state, was exciting and glamorous. But that meant missing out on my brothers' early years, which is my biggest regret. Perhaps it would've been better to stay in town, attend a local community college while working at Sears, and stay close to the family.

Quite frankly, I wasn't ready for college right out of high school, and my grades showed it. I hadn't learned good study habits, and certainly there was no comprehension of the financial impact of a college education. That didn't occur until years afterward.

Cheryl and I try to make sure that our children are ready, and that they know these things: that college requires focus and dedication and ambition and good study habits; that there are financial consequences and responsibilities inherent in the choice; and that, while a college education increases the possibility of a prosperous adulthood, it by no means guarantees it, and certainly doesn't guarantee vocational satisfaction. Only someone who knows what they want to do and pursues that goal to its successful conclusion with all their strength will achieve that kind of satisfaction.

Adam thinks he knows what he wants to do - sort of - which is a good thing to know with only three months left to go before graduation, and he's already picked out a school. This particular school, I discovered, costs approximately the same as WashU (although it offers quite a different curriculum). That surprised me. I knew the school he had chosen was expensive, but hadn't realized it was that expensive! It kind of puts things in a different light. And resonates sharply in my head, this strange, parallel kind of coincidence. It makes me wonder if he is really ready for college. It makes me wonder if we're ready for him to go to college.

We're trying to encourage him to apply to lots of different places and apply for lots of scholarships so that he has lots of alternatives; we don't want him to be in the situation where he's accepted at an expensive college but then can't go due to finances; but perhaps worse would be the situation where he starts attending an expensive college and then discovers that he's really not ready for it from a self-discipline point of view.

I just want to make sure that none of us have any regrets later about his choices today.

---

^[1]Affectionaly known as "WashU"
^[2]He had several other alums to visit, and had decided that Panera was good enough for breakfast and lunch, which meant he'd be there awhile.
^[3]I do tend to go on a bit
^[4]A light rail system back in '81 would've been really, really handy
^[5]Actually, they started building on that site prior to the World's Fair, but stopped while it was going on so that it could be used for the Fair; then resumed building afterward
^[6]According to Wikipedia, one of the purposes in creating the thing in the first place was to help "unify" the politically-split midwest, especially Missouri. Not sure if that worked or not.
^[7]Seriously. Someone had cornered the market in pimentos in the fall of '81 and so nearly every meal for the next two years had an excess of pimentos served as garnish.
^[8]Not Top 5 percent, mind you, but Top 5!