My name is Harlan, back in high school I always had a dream to follow my dad’s legacy of going into the Marines. In order to be recruited, all you needed was a decent highschool degree and no criminal history. I stay out of the “bad crowd”. Before I knew it, all of my friends during my junior/senior year were applying to colleges, visiting colleges, and going on retreats. I was stuck and felt left out which then enlightened me to think that I was pushed to go into the Marines so my parents wouldnt have to worry about taking care of my after high school. My uncle (former Marine) talked me out if it as the US was thinking about invading another world problem at the time. even though I wasn’t a stupid kid, I just didn’t care to try to have top notch grades as I “knew“ that my future was in the Marines. Once my senior year hit, I went to apply to colleges. I wasn’t able to get into the ones that I wanted as I was so late in the process. My dream was to do something in engineering, whether is was electrical or mechanical engineering. I got into SUNY Cobleskill to get a good transcript and grades to then transfer to a technology school. As I was there, I realized that the college really was divided by racial/prejudices and I was hard to get the college experience. After reevaluating what I wanted to do, I realized that I wanted to follow pop culture with had to do with radio, news, TV, and film. I applied to SUNY Oneonta and got in to the Mass. communications major, which followed that route. Once there, things back at home caught up to me. There’s a lot we’re going through me personally. right before I transferre, during my last semester in Coblskill, My dad was shot and killed and he forced my younger sister to do it. We have been paying the price eversince and she has been in prison fighting her innocence trial eversince as well. My family split up when it happened and I have been on my own sorta since a young age and I had to leave 80% of everything I owned and memories. I was able to muscle through college with my degree and get a job in car insurance after. Because of where it put my mind, I’ve been stuck going back and forth to Oneonta eversince I graduated to escape reality at home. Media criticism, social criticism, depression. It’s very tough to go what I went through at that age in college but I still managed to get where I am today. I almost cried telling. What I can say is that I had a huge culture shock going from a small town to a college like Oneonta that has a 72% demographic that is more downstate than I am in Albany. I was introduced to different lifestyles and values where at times I still butted heads with people’s beliefs and views. I was not prepared for college, going in, as I feel like I was forced to do it per the “norm“ they say you need in order to succeed. College has taught me how to relate to people from different background, become more social, have more integrity, and the education part of it. Without college, wouldn’t have escaped the place I was in and would not have met the great people that are just like me. I believe college is a money scam rather than a battle for academics achievement/qualification. I thank God for getting me through the struggling times and blessing me with a job. Right now it is so difficult to get a job where many folks graduate and are left in debt without a job to get to pay it off. It’s dumb. also the pandemic made it worse. college can work if it’s cheaper/free and if you didn’t have to attend for manyyyy years at a time