Artem Lavrov, Period 1, 12/21/21

 Artem Lavrov

Period 1 

12/21/2021

Modern Mythology 2022

Socio-political Consciousness

What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power?

Since I and many of my peers are currently going through the college selection process, I think it is vital to talk about how unfair and oppressive the relationship between college and students is. Although there are many more issues in our society (way more than there should be), I believe education is one of the most important ones because it affects everyone and will shape the future generations of our society. Yet sadly, our education system is full of flaws that no one is willing to correct, and college is just one part of this system. Putting aside who gets selected and who doesn’t, there is still a huge power dynamic between colleges, students, parents, and even schools. This power dynamic starts off before the student even enters high school. It starts with their parents. Colleges have fabricated a belief that Ivy’s are superior to all other schools by far, and that where you go to college is extremely important. This allows them to justify the large price they charge for attending their college. This belief is pushed onto the parents, who in turn push this belief onto their kids. As a result, students are extremely stressed during the college selection process, and some are often devastated when they don’t get into the college they want. Even if a student does work extremely hard and gets into the college of their dreams, their reward is paying the unreasonable tuition price, which is $60,000 a year for most private universities (this doesn’t even include housing). It just isn’t fair that you could work so hard and your reward is an unimaginable amount of debt. However, the truth is that not going to the college you want often will not affect you much in the long run, as the main benefit of going to a prestigious college is often just that, the prestige and connections you get from that college. Oftentimes, you will benefit more from going to a slightly worse college for half the price than a top college and paying full price. Especially if you are middle class, where you receive little to no financial aid, going to a college that charges $60,000 a year just isn’t worth it, even if it is a top school. Overall, I feel colleges have too much power where they shouldn’t, charge way too much (which mainly harms the middle class), and cause unnecessary stress in students. People shouldn’t have to go into debt just to get an education and colleges shouldn’t be allowed to prey on clueless students. Yet that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to colleges. Unfortunately, without a large change in our society or government, nothing will change, and colleges will continue to exploit their students right under everyone’s noses. 

How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?

I am not very strongly opinionated on many things, because I simply do not know enough about them and do not wish to form an opinion that is based on essentially nothing. However, having to experience the college selection process and being one of the many exploited by it has brought me to believe that I have enough information about this topic. It is not because I didn’t get selected by the school I want, I actually got into my dream college. Unfortunately, due to the immense cost, I could not justify attending. Due to this, I am innately biased and perhaps there is something large that I am missing about this topic due to my bias, but truthfully I tried to form my opinion based on research and what I have observed about the college system overall. 

Recently I have started to question a lot of my beliefs and I have realized how many serious issues there are with our society, not just with college. Ever since the pandemic, I feel like I have changed in many ways for the better and matured. The pandemic gave me a lot of time to think about myself and reflect on our society as a whole. While it is hard to change society, changing myself was much less difficult and now I strive to be a better person every day. I have taken up meditation to help assist me with this task. While before, I was a much more hateful and spiteful person, I feel as though finding the source of negativity towards specific things helps me get rid of it. It is often unfounded and I have no reason to be so negative. This has helped me improve many of my relationships with my friends and family and has shown me how positivity can prevail. Much of the negativity came from either myself or a cycle of negativity that I was not willing to break, usually because of pride. Although this does not have much to do with the issue of college, I feel like it is an important addition to this blog because it shows that my opinion is not formed from a source of hate towards colleges, rather it is is a desire to improve them. Colleges are great in that they provide us with an education and help us transition into our adult lives. However, this does not mean they are perfect and much can be improved about them.