We’ve made it to week seven, which means we only have four more weeks left of this quarter until finals. Between orientation week and now, a lot has happened for the student body this year. Funding cuts, program absorptions and depressing news updates have all been factors (aside from my personal life) that have made me start to wonder, what is the point of pursuing higher education in this day and age?
As a child of immigrants and a Black Muslim woman, in my experience, education is equivalent to success. Achieving a college degree in an immigrant community is the highest of honor and worthy of celebration, and if there’s one thing we know how to do it’s celebrate.
At times, I find myself daydreaming about the cash I’ll receive at my graduation party from my aunties and uncles, and that’s enough to motivate me to lock in for hours on end at the library.
But to be serious, to me, education is the armor I bear against an ignorant world. No matter what the future holds in this increasingly insecure economy, my education is priceless and in week seven, it’s good to remind myself of why I’m doing all of this.
This is not to say that my classes this quarter are impossibly hard, that I must fantasize about money to get by; in fact, the course load is much lighter than when I was on the chemistry track. Instead, it’s been hard getting by when every day looks the same, especially as a commuter from Aurora, known to be more diverse than Denver.
As a commuter, it’s hard to feel connected to DU’s student body, especially when so many events happen after dark. As a large population of the school lives in on or near campus housing, I feel a part of an unspoken out group. Many of my classmates know each other from the dorms they live in, and I must wedge my way into their conversations in an attempt to connect to them.
Being from Aurora, I’m glad that I was able to experience growing up in a diverse community before coming to DU. I’ve spoken to students who have admitted that this campus is the most diversity they’ve experienced, and it makes me worry that this predominantly white institution is the only diverse representation some people will ever have.
The question I’ve been trying to answer: how do you continue to stay engaged in an increasingly unstable political climate? The recent Islamophobic attack at Washington Park, and the increase of racist incels on the internet, has made it hard to continue to show up authentically as myself at a historically racist institution.
My irrational fear of being attacked has now turned rational.That thought depresses me, and no amount of reassurance can fix it.
Regardless, no matter how frustrating dealing with mundane tasks like studying for midterms is, it’s a good distraction from the outside world. Quite frankly, it’s a privilege to worry about my Psychology of Women and Gender quiz, and I’d rather that than continue to worry about the state of the world unproductively. Don’t get me wrong, I am not making midterms as an excuse to “tap out” of important issues (like voting. Go vote!).
Instead, I’ve realized that I only have so much mental capacity, and it would be much better spent on doing something to keep me engaged rather than contribute to my burn out and creeping seasonal depression. Like Guillermo del Toro said, “the most radical and rebellious choice you can make is to be optimistic.”
