Friday, February 03, 2012
If I had it all to do over
Well, the learning disabilities were since birth.... no way to cure them... just work around them... No one at SJC did anything with regard to my problem except that Dean Keefer gave me leave to go home for a week or two as I remember. That entire period was a "dark night of the soul." The woman who dated me helped to pull me out of my problems. I cannot say that I ever saw some sinister plot on the part of the College or the faculty. And no one "engineered" my "breakdown" .
I do realize that there are some people who feel a tremendous anger, grudge, whatever, against St. John's program for whatever reason. But I also know that there are far more people who truly enjoyed their four year experience and went on to become very successful doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs.
Had I attended any other college or university things would have been far worse for me. I would not have endured the pressure of frequent exams and finals. My "safety" school was Lycoming College in Williamsport PA which did accept me. I would have been much less happy at Lycoming.
It is quite true that my St. John's education never gave me any marketable skills other than whatever confidence I gained in writing, speaking, and also undertaking to teach myself things like computer programming. It is equally true that the St. John's experience occupied my mind throughout my life as I learned about Eastern Orthodox Christianity and other religions and gained some conversational fluency in Greek and Russian. I would probably do it all over again if I were 17 and knew then what I know now.
The only way I could imagine myself doing something totally different and more practical would be if I had majored in bookkeeping in high school and stayed away from any sort of philosophy. And then I would have gone to New Haven College and majored in accounting. I might have been able to acquire some competency had I started in high school. For many years, Armstrong Tire company advertised on a huge bill board near the entrance to New Haven College because so many graduates went to work at Armstrong. But, as we all know, the economy changed drastically and so did the employers and job markets. So perhaps I would have struggled to build up savings for retirement only to see the investments collapse in ruin and most likely whatever Company I joined would not have maintained a retirement plan and would not have survived the economic upheavals.
Would it have been worth it to lead a miserable life of drudgery and boredom simply to secure a financial future (and there would be no guarantee that my efforts would have led to financial security. )
