"creature comforts"

ken steele makes a good point on the fact that these are four common motivations of students attending college, and im almost positive he's aware most people have a bit of each of these motivations in them so i'm not going to try and argue that point. instead i'll just say that yes- all of these things influenced my choice to attend college.

going through high school, attending maggie walker governor's school for government and international studies historic high school (bla bla bla we had the longest name ever), everyone in my grade applied to college, and only one person ended up not getting in and even he ended up attending community college. so yeah, though i was hardly "pushed" into going to college, it was something that was definitely expected of me. regardless of whether or not i really knew what i was going to do with me life.

which leads me into his careerists category. this is probably where i fit in best. which is a bit of a negative attitude in my opinion, but i suppose i'm a bit negative. what i'm really interested in doing is nursing. and to relate these two facts ill bring you back to my first semester, which was spent not really learning but doing everything i could possibly do to make it out with all As and up my chances of getting into nursing school.

i'm not really going to go into my reasoning for going into college to learn, because learning has always been something i enjoyed or at least really found satisfaction in doing. and i find it pretty self explanatory as to why this would motivate me in my classes etc. so....

on to the category "drifters". i have to be a little disgruntled about the name of this category, but i feel like i may be seeing the idea of it a little differently than him as well. to methe phrase creature comforts conjures up a vision of the entire college experience. moving away from home, meeting new people, being in a new environment that's not going to chew you up and spit you back out, etc. i feel like this is a really important part of college. it's sort of a safety yes, but it lets people let loose and take chances they might not otherwise and experience all sorts of new things that in the real world can seem way too scary. and with the amount of people you come in contact with at college, you can meet some of the most intelligent people. the same people might end up failing out, majoring in something not necessarily "academic" in nature, or just be taking a few classes on the side to a job. but they can teach you, in my opinion, more than any class could. and i know in my case the people i've met already have taught me more than i thought possible.

so really, i feel like all these things apply to almost everyone. but if i had to narrow it down for myself, my two really big ones would have to be drifter and careerist (in my own definition to drifter... regardless of if that fits with steele's).