Richard Flamm
The Paw Print
I’m coming to the end of my under grad degree at Adams State, and let me tell you, I have been like a ship set upon a briny, angry sea. I still have a semester to go, but it seems good to take a quick inventory before heading back into my proverbial cave of study.
Adams State is no quiet ocean, and I’m not sure I’ve got all the pieces I had when I first started – like Frankenstein’s monster I’m an amalgamation of lost parts. I’ve taken the SATs and the GRE, sat through 400 level classes with two other people in them, and taken Biology 101 with 80% freshman girls. All for that coveted sheet of paper they say makes men free.
What’s to be said as my fingertips brush the edges of that degree? The simple sheet puts me in the 33% percent of mid-twenty-year-olds who have degrees and the only 8% of Black men who hold at least a Bachelors. Now, I can’t decide if I’ve been at sea all this time, or if I’m just setting sail.
Suddenly, I realize the skills I’ve been sharpening are getting ready to be tried out. I’ve never had less confidence in an institution to prepare me for the challenges of life. We make ourselves what we are. I’ve got my piece of paper and I’m ready to be tested in the marketplace of ideas and commerce. For many of us, drive and belief shifts around in the mid-twenties, and I find myself no exception. If you’re reading this as a either a freshman or faculty, hold onto this bold idea: Make things. Generate ideas. Cure things. Tap into that energy through the abilities you most identify with – not with a University. It’s just brick walls, and our friends and Professors are there for us, but we must not forget that we all captain our ships and must plot our own course for the stars.
I remember playing this old game when I was significantly shorter – back when the original PlayStation was still a thing. In the game, you recruited characters whose abilities could be broken down to a letter scale of “A-D.” The goal of the game was to create a team comprised of individuals who performed one or two things very well, giving each member the chance to fully focus on their own unique skill set. What I learned in college is just like what I learned in that old game. While we may be far more complex than my old game’s characters, the concept is similar: find your “A” and “B” skills and utilize them. Gen eds, the opposite sex, and even upper divisional classes can be a distraction for what many of us set out to do: develop ourselves. This lesson has unprecedented importance the closer the advent of the degree comes. Sure your papers are ready, but are you?
I want to create. To use and develop skills to make art, business, new relationships, and technology. These degrees we’re all aspiring for are not the end. It may seem a silly thing to say, but it can be easy to forget that we are far more than degrees doled out by Colleges that seem to be more interested in the bottom line than believing in individuals.
We are assembling our tools on the table. Yes, we are scraping by on ramen and late hours. Yes, the economy is a dustbowl. But, we are creators. As I wrap up my time at Adams State I realize that oftentimes when I felt most lost I actually had a very good idea of who I was, but for whatever reason, focused on other things.
If you’re like me, you also get lost in the raising tuition and the opposite sex. We’re just trying to make rent and believe if we jump through enough academic hoops there is grad school or at the very least a job waiting for us.
Don’t forget that we create relationships. We create jobs. Let’s not lose sight of the ship we’ve been building plank by plank all this time. We may not have much help (we don’t), but we’ll ration the food whilst we must, and look for that approaching dawn when we’ll set sail with our hearts and wits about us. Let’s dream bigger dreams as our hands work to brace our ships for the fast-approaching morning that we raise anchor and set sail.
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