The College Years

I always thought I'd go to college.  But, I was never the type of student who aspired to go to some big name university.  Or be in a sorority.  Neither interested me.  I just wanted to get in somewhere and learn some stuff. Though I was always a decent student, I wasn't valedictorian or salutatorian material.  And the secret shame I've carried with me for almost 30 years is that I bombed the SAT.  Which for a girl from the northeast, where SAT scores are in fact the word of god, it meant I was a complete moron and therefore bound and determined not to amount to anything.   Even so,  I wasn't stupid enough for this fact to elude me.

So a couple days ago, I went to a meeting at my kids' high school on preparing for college.  Oh, I didn't want to go, because it's impossible to have kids who are almost college age when you just got out of college like two years ago.  Right?  But, I went anyway because I want my kids to have the biggest spectrum of opportunities available to them.  And I don't want them to feel like they're dumb and then obsess over that idiotic notion for the next 25 years.  Because that's a really stupid thing to do.

But, when I walked in that classroom, all those insecurities came rushing back.  

I was scanning for an open seat in the back row,  just like I always did in school.  Except, a friend saved me a seat in the very visible second row.  Dammit!  When I went for my Masters degree, I had a professor in an English class tell me he knew our final grades based on where we sat the first day.  And even though I sat in the "F" zone, way in the back, I aced his class.  I always wanted to rub his face in that.   Now if that was a math class, he would've been right.  Because I'm not an analytical thinker.  Which is why I bit it on the SAT and did just fine on the ACT and GRE. Not that I was consoled by either one of those and I continued to feel like a loser.

Which is exactly how I felt when a parent asked a question about her kid's calculus 3 AP class.

So everyone is talking numbers, financing, planning, organizing and football teams.  Dude, this is all the shit I sucked at the first time around.  I'm not an analytical thinker people, I'm a creative thinker.  So, I could write you a compelling essay about how I feel about college.  Oh wait, I think I'm doing that right now.  But, I am analytic enough to realize that the overachiever mom looking for a gold star and an "A" sat in the back.  Yes, in the "F" zone.  

What an effing brown noser!

By the time I left, I was completely overwhelmed.  Because I calculated that with my 4 kids,  I have eight more years of this college prep shit.  Oh,  I did the math people!  And that may be the highest level math I'm capable of.  So I took the next steps in college planning the way any sensitive parent would.    When my oldest got home from school I made him take the Myers-Briggs personality test to help him understand himself  and his strength better so he'd be better able to choose a major that fits him best and makes him happy.  And then I asked him how he felt about it.  Turns out, he's an analytical, take charge extrovert with little regard for feelings type.  My complete opposite.  

So maybe forcing him to sign up for AP calculus is what's best for him after all. 
Just don't tell know-it-all mom I said that.

You can take the Myers-Briggs test free on-line here.  Or force your kid take it.  Whatever.