Each morning, my alarm clock threatens to take me from my bed, and I must make the hardest decision — to go to class, or not to go to class.
Since starting college, I can hardly believe that I survived 13 years of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to go to eight hours of mandatory attendance classes, much less that I graduated with academic honors.
I want to give you a few things to consider, when you find yourself in that critical moment, deciding whether you will make it to your first class.
First, think about the 70 million humans who are denied education.
I’m not going to use this fact as a way to guilt you into doing something you don’t want to do, the way that your mother would tell you to finish your brussel sprouts because some kids are going to bed hungry tonight.
We made the choice to be here. And I know it sometimes seems like we’re here to pass classes so we can get a degree, because “C’s get degrees.”
But the difference in college is that most of us are walking across the stage at graduation with no additional education in mind. We are going to leave LSU and go into the job field.
And in the field, it won’t matter if you got an A because you memorized four chapters of communication theory the night before your final exam. What will matter is how you are able to apply those skills to your job.
One percent of the world’s population will receive a college degree. This puts us in an enormous advantage when looking for careers.
Degrees are not certificates of participation once you’re looking for a job. Degrees are promises of skill.
And if you don’t have the skills to back up your promise, you can bet you’ll be back on the job hunt in a few weeks.
Secondly, consider the hefty cost of the class you are missing.
Many of us will never be asked for that money, at least not all of it.
I am in my second year of college at LSU, and so far I have paid no out-of-pocket expense for my education. Considering I go to the state’s flagship university, that’s pretty impressive.
I am thankful for the TOPS program, which allows me to attend a university like LSU — or at least I thought I was.
But when I consider that program the reason I am able to go to school for free, I realize that I am able to do so because someone, somewhere, made the decision to invest in my future.
Each time I skip a class during a 15-week semester, I am wasting money that someone gave me so that I can receive an education and make a contribution to the world.
Suddenly, my track record of skipping class to sleep doesn’t seem like grateful behavior.
Even more absurd is this is in comparison to some, such as 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai. For her, the price of education doesn’t have a dollar sign attached to it.
From the age of 9, Yousafzai had been an advocate of education and female rights, writing for BBC about her life under the Taliban rule.
On Oct. 9, 2012, Malala’s school bus was stopped, and two men boarded the bus, asked which child was Malala.
When she raised her hand, they shot her in the head and neck.
Her recovery took four months of surgery and hospital stays in Birmingham, England.
This teenage girl was so dedicated to her education and that of other women that she continued her schooling after an assassination attempt by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, all many of us need is to check the syllabus and see we won’t be missing anything we deem important before giving ourselves permission to head back to sleep.