A Breakfast
​The breakfast was good, above my usual pay grade.
My dad was visiting; one of the rare visits that come with being from New York.
We started the morning at The Broken Egg, splitting a pot of coffee and eggs while discussing my older brother’s latest attempt to distance himself from my family.
Then we started walking down North Main Street.
A silent tension hung in the air before my dad finally asked what was on my mind. He had opened the floodgates.
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I confessed all the doubts that had been piling up in my mind.
Should I be studying something more important — by stereotypical college standards — than Communications?
Would I be able to get a job with that degree? With those older than me struggling to get jobs and internships, was trying to go into journalism a mistake?
As he always has, my dad fell back on each of my siblings’ life experiences as the answer.
Janet went to an Ivy League school before becoming a teacher — much to the surprise to the majority of people in my hometown — before deciding to concentrate on being a mom.
Vinnie pursued a business degree, only to work a year in New York City before going to medical school.
TJ did the opposite, going through medical school before deciding to be a consultant.
Mike went to business school, but eventually chose to open his own physical therapy practice.
And most relevant of all, James graduated with a history degree, worked in a group home that helped the mentally disabled, was diagnosed with cancer and ultimately enrolled in culinary school after his chemotherapy treatments thankfully did their job.
With five examples from his own children's lives, my dad had learned to expect the unexpected. He told me to relax, to trust that everything would work out as it’s meant to.
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It didn't help.
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The thing is, I’m not sure if those doubts only existed in my head, or if they’re a uniform product of the environment that exists on a college campus.
I came to Ann Arbor, perhaps naively, expecting to spend four years basking and soaking in an educational experience, eventually figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted structure, but not too much.
Maybe those thoughts were childish, because upon arriving, I quickly realized that college feels more like a machine intended to take in students and pump them out as individuals ready to contribute forever thereafter to the workforce.
To be clear, I understand that in some part that is exactly what college is meant to do, and I don’t mean to suggest that we should aimlessly wander through four years of higher education without ever adopting a goal or vision. But I didn’t expect to find it embedded within every facet of this campus.
My freshman year, it seemed every club I handed out my email address to had some greater purpose; it didn’t just exist as an organization in and of itself.
That business club was really a resume builder for a Ross application, a Ross application could get you admitted to one of the top business schools in the nation, and getting admitted to one of the top business schools in the nation meant you were leaving school comfortably situated with a job.
The Daily didn't fit that mold. I was infatuated.
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Until I wasn't.