This one really hits home for me. I’m at a cross roads in my life right now and kind of lost. I had a great job working as the number 2 at a small business that I lucked into, but for various reasons beyond the control of the corporation, had to close. I’m in my late 20s, and as this article puts it, merely a high school graduate. I can code and do IT work, coordinate problem solving between businesses, read scientific texts, understand statistics and am very capable of managing others, amongst many other skills. Indeed these were all attributes that allowed me to rapidly rise up the ranks. But trying to find a fulfilling job without a Bachelor’s is beginning to feel like a fool’s errand. My parents were both college grads and waited a long time to have kids, so I don’t have the problems with rationalizing and asking questions that article presupposes—indeed my inability to accept orders and not have intellectual freedom drives me to keep looking for rewarding work, against the odds.
Despite being described as bright my whole life, I’ve never done well in an academic environment for a few reasons, I could readily absorb the material but I was terribly antagonistic towards teachers who generally desire a sense of authority in their class rooms. I also as an adult have been diagnosed with ADHD, which to me at least explains a good portion of why I struggled in school. I never did my homework and was told endlessly that going to community college was the best financial option, and I was very freaked out by student loans, the problem being that community colleges put much more emphasis on grading coursework, which ended up being my downfall.
Part of me thinks I should just start lying on my resume about having attended a 4 year STEM program, because the credentialism seems so real and absolutely bullshit. I have work experience, if I got an interview they’d probably be blown away with this “high school graduate”, but I never get interviews, no matter how qualified I am. I’ve even been encouraged to do this by people in the “educated elite”. They tell me to just study a given schools curriculum, learn some names of professor and call it good enough. But I really hate lying about myself, it feels so contrary to my nature. As the article mentions, I feel very depressed with my life and reading people who say that a degree is a golden indicator is genuinely depressing. I don’t know what to do, and I honestly feel victimized by credentialism, which makes me resent the concept of dropping everything and taking on loans to go to school. (At least my interest rate would be good now!)