Eight Years Ago Today I Started My Degree At Columbia University

Apollo Fields Wedding Photographers | Long Island Photographer | Columbia University NYC | Destination Weddings | Heather Huie

Eight years ago today I started my degree at Columbia University.

I’d like to say that this was a decision that really launched my career, took my art to a new level, and set me apart from the competition– but I’d be lying. In fact, my shiny advanced ivy level education was remarkably… unremarkable.

Let’s back it up a bit here. The year was 2014 and I was two years out of my bachelors that I had completed at TCNJ. My undergrad experience was one that challenged me, kept me in the library until the lights were turned off, left me in the studio so late sometimes that the only other person in the building would be the security guard as he trailed back and forth through the hallways on his graveyard shifts. There I’d be in an otherwise dark corridor, typing away, illuminated by only the light on my laptop and his flashlight, and without saying a word he would just nod his hat in my direction, or occasionally throw me a peace sign.

My professors had expected a lot out of me, and I happily rose to the occasion.

When I graduated magna cum laude, I felt at once a sense of pride as well as a strange solitude. Even a little disappointment, if we’re being honest… I had spent so much time reaching for perfect GPAs there that I had failed to make time for developing many true friendships. While others were fratting away with their Theta Beta Bimbos, I saw no appeal in rallies and rumbles. I felt, in many ways, that I had gotten all of that buddy buddy brethren out in boarding school, and it was time to focus on my academics. So I did.

Nevertheless, I still felt like I had something more to say (prove?) in the world of academia so two years later I threw an application at Columbia and was delighted to be accepted into their Masters program. I had always lived near the city but never in the city, and was ready to push myself again the way I had at TCNJ. Except more, naturally, because it was a more advanced degree at a more advanced school. Right? Not exactly.

On my first day, one of my professors who was old as dirt laid out a bunch of books on the table before us. She told us to thumb through them, so we did. She then informed us that these were all of her books she authored, and when we had as many publications as she did, then we were allowed to have an opinion in her class. Super, I thought, what a bitch. But of course, she had been tenured for twenty years which in her case meant that she was hungry for nothing more than a paycheck and her position was unflappable.

This was, I would come to find out, part of the problem with these celebritized professors. Either their egos had gotten so large that they were unwilling to engage in any sort of debate or rhetoric with us lowly students, or they had simply grown tired. How long can one teach the same material with believable fortitude? I don’t know. But I do know that all it took was a simple, “May I have an extension please?” to be granted one and absence meant almost nothing in terms of your grade at the end of the semester.

Hell, I decided about ten minutes into a welding class that I was terrified of welding, and flat out did not turn in a metalwork sculpture. It was one out of the three final projects we would be graded on that whole term, and I still received an A-. Trust me, my woodworking skills were not refined enough to carry me to the finish line, and I interpreted that grade as proof that I was paying for my degree, not my education.

So it has been eight years since I embarked on my ivy league journey.
Six since I graduated.

It will probably be another sixty before I’m done paying it off, and if we’re being honest, I’m not sure anyone really cares. My paycheck didn’t automatically inflate itself once my diploma was placed in my hand, and nobody came rushing to my side with job offers. I did, however, receive a bottle of Veuve from the University, which I promptly drank straight from the bottle in my light blue cap and gown walking down Broadway. That part didn’t suck…

I still believe in school and I realize that I have been very, very privileged along the way. Scholarships and fellowships and grants have given me my proverbial wings, just as student loans have given me my proverbial shackles. To that I say fuck you Sally Mae, and all your boomer comrades who told us to stay in school even though they only made it through the twelvth grade. Yeah, I’m looking at you mom and dad, because you might not remember when I was seventeen and you guys enthusiastically pushed student loans at me with the empty promise that I would graduate with a six figure job right on the other side, but I sure do.

I’m not bitter anymore (I mean, don’t ask my therapist) but I would like to end this on a positive note. My undergrad taught me that you can work yourself to death and still miss the mark on perfection – that perfect 4.0 – and you might not even have many friends to show for it in the end. But I had a great education there. I had phenomenal professors who actually gave a rat's ass about our opinions and expanding our minds. My masters taught me that sometimes you have to pay to play, and that when you’re spending $50k a year, you actually can just walk up to your teacher and say you want an extension. But freedom ain’t free, so be prepared to pony up when they come a’knockin’, and they always do.