Working Class Kid Goes to College!

Hey everyone!

So today I want to attempt to tackle the HUGE topic that has been lingering in front of me for months! What does it mean to be working class and a college student? To put a finer point on it, what does it means to be working class and a college student at an ELITE, FOUR-YEAR university? I will by no means fully unpack this topic in this post, but its time that I start writing about it. With 59 days until I graduate with a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I feel ready to start talking about the past four years. This post will be my general thoughts on what it means to be working class at a college like mine, particularly discussing some of the challenges we face.

I first want to repost a portion of a post that is from my personal blog/journal. It was written in January 2009.

Life at UW-Madison is like living with a permanent suspension of disbelief--I know it is not this way for everyone, but it is for me and others like me. While around campus with my best friend, she will often look at me and say, "Are we in the Twilight Zone right now?" We laugh and share in our inside joke, one only working-class, small town, first-generation college students like us understand.

College is when people like me straddle two worlds, then life after graduation is where we live in limbo--dwelling between two worlds, never at home in either. While in college, we must choose whether to lose ourselves, to sell-out, to become like the elite students around us; or we must fight to remain true to our roots, to not lose our cultural identity, to leave with the same soul as when we entered. If we choose the latter, we must learn how to survive in an inhospitable land that actively works to destroy us. We are slowly mastering this process:

1. Master smiling. A smile is ambiguous, no one really knows what is going on behind. Learn to smile through your tears, your anger, your fear, and your shame. Learn to smile in the face of ignorance and hatred.
   
2. Bite your tongue. When you are the only person in your class who is poor class, working class, from a small town, a first generation college student, etc., you will not win a verbal exchange because no one, including your professors and TAs, will understand what you are saying. For this reason, you must learn to bite your tongue. Bite it even if it hurts. Bite it even if it bleeds. You can speak your mind, but you must do it with your peers, which is partially why I founded the Working Class Student Union.
3. Learn to pass. Study the rich elites--their words, their mannerisms, their clothing, their humor (or lack thereof), and their interests. After studying these people, pick parts of their behavior to mimic when appropriate. Mimicking clothing is one of the best and easiest things to do. For this, be sure to shop at second hand stores, especially Goodwill. Working class/poor class stores (i.e. Wal-Mart) are catching up to current styles, but at much more affordable prices. Another factor on our side is the fact that the rich elites, particularly those who are politically active, think its cool to dress like they are "poor" and usually they do an awful, stereotypical, offensive job of this. Their bizarre style and ridiculous way of doing it, often makes us appear to be of a higher class than them because we dress in the cheaper versions of current style. Manner of speaking is also huge, but it warrants its own blog post (which is forthcoming).
4. Make Connections! This is the key to our survival--if no one knows who you are, they will not notice when the UW squeezes you out! Connect with (IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE) with your professors, TAs, classmates, student organizations, administrators, ASM leadership, and anyone and everyone else you can find! Good ways to this are to join student organizations, get appointed through ASM to Shared Governance seats on UW committees, and seek internal UW jobs. Additionally, join the Working Class Student Union because if you get squeezed out, I guarantee I will notice and I will ask why!

This list could be longer, but I will spare you all the nuances now and will post them at a later time. I will wrap this long post up now, but more posts will follow.

Fourteen months later, I still stand by these words. The best way to summarize my behavior these for years is that I survived my college experience. In some regards, I thrived (regarding skill development through my student orgs) and failed (regarding some of my academic course work). All in all, I survived. I completed my degrees in four years and will get the prestigious piece of paper and a chance to take a 30-second stroll across the stage. I know it was worth it, but I still am concerned about what the cost was of doing so.

I know my mental and emotional health has been impacted, due partially to the high levels of stress that come from balancing multiple jobs and classes; and partially to spending four years in an economic minority as a cultural outsider at an institution that rarely acknowledged I existed.

I know that my relationship with my family has changed as I become the first person in my family receive a four-year degree immediately out of high school. I speak differently and have to consciously "turn-on" my college voice or my Beloit voice. I have to work constantly to behave in the manner in which my college education has taught me--taking the role as "researcher" versus participant, always analyzing those around me, and working to change the behavior of the "uninformed."

I honestly fear this change. Despite my best efforts, I know that I have changed. But how much? How will this change impact my relationships with my family and community? How will this change impact how I raise my children? Has Chynna really changed or just the way she thinks sometimes? I know that I will slowly realize the answers to this question, especially when I leave the Ivory Tower and return to my hometown in May. I will be a straddler in limbo between my working class roots and middle class education. I just hope that I can renegotiate my identity and role in my family and community. Living in limbo is unsettling and I hope that find a way to do it on my own terms.

Like I said, this is the first of many posts on this subject. Please comment with your thoughts and experiences.

Thanks!
Chynna