Epiphany: A Realization

I’m on the ten year plan when it comes to college. Actually, it’s probably longer than that. Or will end up being longer than that. You see my grandpa, being the generous man that he is, set up nine trusts for his nine grandchildren. Each trust has $10,000 and it can only be used for school. Books, tuition, housing, etc.

I’ve always excelled at school. It’s just never been much of a problem for me outside of math. All through my schooling I got good grades, went to class, and did as I was told. I’d like to think I was a pretty good student. Come my junior year in high school is when I started thinking that I can’t stand school that much. It wasn’t really my peers or my teachers. I guess it was just the learning environment that school provides. Classroom. Desk. Teacher at the front lecturing on whatever the lesson is that day. It all just finally got old. But I sucked it up. I continued to get good grades. I kept going to class. I didn’t give in to the whole “playing hooky” idea. My senior year I had a serious case of senioritis and it probably ended up being one of my hardest years of school. I took Drama, Speech, Anatomy/physiology, Science seminar (an advanced science class where you came up with a project and worked on it all year long), AP english, and Pre-Calc. I didn’t even NEED a math class my senior year. I know that I am awful at math. Why did I subject myself to that torture? I tried to remain as engaged as possible. I ditched a few times but not enough for me to flunk out or for my parents to notice. It was mostly that damn math class. It was easy as it was my last class of the day. I graduated in May of 2004 and earlier that year I had been accepted to the University of Central Oklahoma. I started in August with my mind set on nursing. Good money, you get to help people. Why not? I got through one semester and didn’t return until I was twenty-two. By that time I could’ve graduated. I didn’t really care though. I had just finished thirteen years of school and now I had the choice to go? Why force myself to stay four years? So I didn’t. In the four years I was gone, I pretty much became a different person. My attitude, what I wanted out of life. Indeed a lot had changed. By this time I wanted to be a photographer. Seemed a much easier degree than nursing and quite a more enjoyable profession. At least you don’t have to worry about people dying on your watch. So I went back to school for photojournalism as UCO doesn’t have a Fine Art Photography program. I went through the classes. Basic, dark room, lighting, commercial, electronic, etc. I’m quite literally a semester or two away from getting a B.A. in Mass Communications with an emphasis on Photographic Arts. But a few semesters ago I chose again not to go back. My excuse was that I was trying to save money for things and going to school prevents me from working enough to save money. But I really think I just grew tired of the program. I value above all else, the education I have received from Jesse and Mark, my photography professors. Outside of that though, I didn’t feel as though I was truly prepared to go out and be a photojournalist. Besides, that’s not really the type of photography I’d like to make a living from.

This isn’t a big post to tell everyone that I am giving up on photography. I could never do that. More than anything else, it helps me make sense of this mess we live in. It is one of the ultimate forms of expression and to lose that would be like…losing an arm. I could never stop making pictures.

But I did have an epiphany. Getting a photography degree is the same thing as getting a theatre degree. Sure you went through school but Brad Pitt didn’t become famous because he got a degree in theatre. And David LaChapelle isn’t one of the most widely known photographers because he went to school to learn how to make pictures either. What I’m saying is, the type of photography I want to do will not be helped a long by some degree from a small college in Oklahoma. Editorial/fashion/commercial is really something you break into because you sold yourself and you proved that your work is something worth investing in, much like being a Hollywood actor. That is definitely still my aim but I feel as though I need a job that isn’t bar tending or waiting tables. Don’t get me wrong, my job has afforded me a lot of things. But I think it’s time for me to move on.

So I’ve decided I am going back to school. I’m declaring a new major. I thought long and hard about it and decided that I want to be a Graphic Designer. I still get the creativity of photography but it seems like GD’s are always in demand. Kind of like a nurse. I’m super excited about this. I know I’ve pretty much doomed myself to another two years of college but it will be worth it. As long as I can stick it out. There isn’t one reason that I should not get a college degree with it being paid for. Not many kids are afforded that kind of opportunity and I absolutely should take advantage of it. If not for me then for the millions of kids that must go without a college education for one reason or another.