Intro

I feel uncomfortable. Not anxious. But deeply, deeply uncomfortable with being a part of something that I don’t really want to. To voluntarily subject myself to the frustration of a system that I inherently do not agree with, because I want to be able to accomplish certain things, and I’ve finally come up against a wall that can only be overcome with a piece of paper. I feel as though I’ve betrayed my own values in order to accomplish something, betrayed my very happiness for my future. I’ve always been very much an autodidact, and this feels so much like I’m stuck between the choice of really learning something new, and being able to prove to somebody else that I’ve “learned”. I feel like the majority of my classes are me paying a great deal of money to listen to things I learned about over years of working in the “industry” simply because nobody has cared enough to figure out a way to test out of them. I don’t mind that the classes are online, I do mind that the school charges the same amount without giving the professors the resources or training to be able to succeed in delivering the same education that they used to. Mostly, I think I’m frustrated at feeling like I’m “starting over” 6 years later, and I think my ego is projecting it’s insecurities onto the framework that I’ve voluntarily entered into, and that framework really isn’t doing anything to reassure me that this was the right decision. If you’ve stuck along this long, here’s a photo of my dog, Lennox, that is incredibly misleading as far as the content of the message it accompanies, he’s a real good boy. I chose a picture of him because for all the uncertainty that life has, especially during Covid (I’ve lived in 5 different states) he’s a wonderful, annoying constant.