"College Dropout". I hate that phrase.

And yet, in a technical sense, that is exactly what I am. After 2 years of college (one didn't count; the college was unaccredited), I walked away. It wasn't because of grades; those were fine. It was a combination of other things, from the fact that I hadn't yet learned to deal with my infrequent but intense bouts of social phobia, to the fact that I really didn't understand WHY I was there. Sure, I was there to LEARN, but WHY? I lacked the cohesive sense of direction, the drive, and the resolve that marked so many of my contemporaries.

I learned a lot more than many of them, though. In my short college tenure, I "came alive" to a passion for folk music, and a burning desire to learn, not just during college, but throughout life. I also found a desire to teach, but did not want to do that within the increasingly stifling confines of the educational institutions that we know today. I came, not to eschew higher education, per se, but to see it less as a necessity than a means to an end. I have seen highly educated folks who weren't very intelligent, and I have seen functional illiterates who were highly knowledgeable in their fields of choice. I learned that one's education doesn't have a thing to do with one's self worth.

And yet, I miss one thing. That degree that is so unnecessary for knowledge, is at the same time essential for credibility. My self learning may have aided me in satisfying my own goals, but it also consigned me to forever be branded a misfit, a part of the fringe, and, most distastefully...

...a college dropout.

Signing off,

Gideon MacLeish