( jm's digital postcards )

I'm Moving to Boston!

 

A map of (most of) the colleges in the Boston Metro Area. My school, "The BAC" is a tiny dot somewhere right-of-center, immediately east of the giant Boston University sliver.

Credit: Bill Rankin, Radical Cartography
 

Brevity has never been a strength of mine (or to look at it from a "strengths-based perspective, verbosity is one of my strong points). Anyone who has had the joy of receiving one of my emails knows this from experience. I will say, however, that I am improving! I must have shed a paragraph or two on average since my high school days. Anywho, this is to preface today's blog post — weeks in the making.

10 Things I've Learned at Work

A close-up of my MetroCard collection. It's a comparatively tiny collection, but you've got to start somewhere. For those unfamiliar with transit in NYC, MetroCards are magnetic fare collection devices. The front of a MetroCard is standard (with some cool exceptions, i.e./ the earliest blue MetroCards and the "sustainabiity" MetroCards). The back is unique. Some people collect MetroCards. Some people have been collecting them since the card was introduced in 1993! 

I haven't posted in close to a month! It's not that I've run out of things to say. On the contrary, like many bloggers, I go through a day flagging things I'd like to blog about. By the end of the day, I have a ton of topics to choose from and ultimately choose to "post tomorrow".

I finally decided that things have been stagnant for much too long, so I left tonight's topic to chance! I wrote seven topics on seven sheets of paper. I tossed those sheets into a container, shook the container, and removed one sheet.

Today's topic: "10 Things I've Learned at Work".

Place Setting: My Room

A panoramic arrangement of photos of my room. A snippet from my creative project for the BAC. Click to see the full piece.

Hello there! Long time, no post, eh? Sorry!

So what have I been doing for the last ten or so days? Let’s split it into two halves, the “sorta, but not really getting much of anything done” half and the “finally doing things” half.

Returning Home, Going to Providence, Imagining Boston

If you haven't read my first post, On Leave & Liberation, and you aren't aware of the fact that I am on leave from Carleton, I suggest you read that post first!

The Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport (source: about.com, Queens)

What was it like to arrive back in New York? Honestly? It was pretty darn rough, but it's gotten better. It was very strange to ride the tram between MSP Transit Center and Lindbergh Terminal, unsure of when I would ride it again. That passageway has featured prominently in many of my fondest Carleton memories — riding the escalator up at the start of term, not knowing who to expect at the top but always sure to find a Carleton student. I'll definitely be back, and certainly will return through MSP one day.

I flew Delta home, LGA by way of Midway. No interesting airplane conversations, perhaps for the better. A lot of attempts at sleeping though. Upon landing, I arrived at the Marine Air Terminal, quite a ways away from the rest of LaGuardia Airport. It was extremely sunny that day which left me very uncomfortable as I was dressed in a sweater I didn't want to pack, over my clothes from staff dinner & the goodbye party, lugging around 101 1/2 pounds of baggage on no sleep. Besides being physically drained, I was also quite emotionally drained and my first few hours at home were pretty uncomfortable until I crashed into a 12 hour "nap". I'll end the sad recollections with that.

On Leave & Liberation

Liminality — The condition of being “in between” or “on the margins” of social roles, in particular of being in transition (as during ritual) between one social role and another.

(Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives)

This afternoon, I found myself in the common position of being obliged to introduce myself. Until last week, it was a common ritual. "Hi, I'm Jim" // "I'm a sophomore at Carleton College," // "it's a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, about 40 minutes from the Twin Cities," // "yes, it can be cold," // etc., etc.

But today, I delivered it differently.

"Hi, I'm Jan Michael" // "finished with classes?" // "one more week, sweet!" // "uhmm, I'm not really in school right now" // "starting an internship at a web start up next week" // "well, it's interesting, see, I'm technically on leave from Carleton College right now" // "it's a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, about 40 minutes from the Twin Cities," // "it got cold at times, especially in the winter," // "yeah, it snowed last weekend" // etc., etc. // "I'm transfering to architecture school"

I am "on leave" — scratch that — technically, I am on leave. In reality, I am in a liminal space. I am in transition; a number of transitions. I am transitioning from being a full-time student to being a non-student. I am transitioning from Minnesota to New York. I am transitioning from college to life. Eventually, I will successfully make the transition from being a liberal arts student to being an architecture student.

It has been a very emotional time for me. I left Carleton half-way through the term, unable to meet academic expectations. "I am at a loss to understand your lack of engagement," read one succinct e-mail from a professor. Reading those words, I uttered to myself, "I am at a loss to understand my lack of engagement". It is a lack of academic engagement which pestered me through five and a half terms at Carleton (Carleton operates on a trimester system). Through those terms I sought help, utilized resources, tried what I could to make myself interested in what I was learning, but more importantly in how I was learning it. I certainly wasn't completely unengaged. In campus life, among friends, at work I would consider myself very much engaged. But ultimately, performing in a student-choreographed dance to "Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell" doesn't get you off academic probation. Working with a highly-supportive group of campus leaders and administrators, speaking with friends, utilizing campus resources, but most importantly taking time to reflect over life from a distance, I began to gain clarity.

Clarity came in the form of good advice — advice I now share as much as I can. What was that advice? "Know your strengths, play to your strengths" // "Know yourself, know what works and what doesn't work for you". 

I very much respect scholars, but I have come to the conclusion that I may very well not be a "scholar". It is often said that "there is no such thing as 'the Carleton student,' Carls are all different," however there certainly is such a thing as 'the Liberal Arts student". Central to the identity of "the Liberal Arts student" is a love of "the liberal arts," liberal of course meaning "free," and the term as a whole associated with the idea that one is free and encouraged to study many different things. Adapted to the college setting, one eventually begins to concentrate on a particular field and from there combines insight from the many viewpoints and studies s/he has studied into that particular field. At Carleton this all comes to a close with a comprehensive exercise ("comps").

Sounds great right? That's because it IS pretty awesome. However, as awesome as it is, it isn't me, and it isn't what I want to be devoting my life to. I am much more focused and quite trade-oriented. Am I curious? Of course! However, people do not necessarily need college to satisfy their curiosity. That's why we have libraries and Wikipedia!

Liberal arts colleges work for many people. I tried to make it work with me, but it just didn't click. As I went about my college search, I fell in love with the concept of the liberal arts and devalued the idea of a "co-op education," or a technical education, however in evaluating my most meaningful experiences at Carleton, they have been those work experiences. Working in the dining hall in my freshman year, working as a resident assistant my sophomore year, building houses with Habitat for Humanity. Those experiences are some of the most meaningful experiences I have had at Carleton.

It was tough to leave a place I have grown to be comfortable in, and to leave friends I love dearly. However, you cannot force yourself to do something you do not enjoy or mould yourself into something you are not.

I may no longer be a (active) liberal arts student, but I believe that I am indeed liberated.