Nostalgia moment: College (Bloganuary)

Not including enrichment classes at various J.C.s, I’ve attended four universities (Americans often use the term “college” broadly, to mean any institution of higher education).

The first was an archetypal college experience at Humboldt State University (now Cal Poly Humboldt), in Arcata, California, which I attended for about three years in the late 80s before changing my major and transferring to finish elsewhere. I didn’t know what I wanted to do back then, but I eventually figured it out.

The first year at HSU, I lived on the stunning wooded campus in a dormitory suite with three other girls. I remember so many details about this time and place. I was a studious kid back then, majoring in journalism and French. I wrote for the campus newspaper, attended football games and festivals, and joined a sorority. I broke the heart of a boyfriend back home when I left for school, so there was some drama in those initial months, but things finally settled and I was able to focus on discovering (or at least, exploring) what I wanted to do with my life.

The Humboldt years were among the most wholesome fun, mostly because of an extraordinary group of sorority sisters, some of whom I still count among my dearest friends. For about a year after dorm living, a group of us lived together in a house on C Street that was the de facto sorority house, even though it wasn’t officially recognized, for liability reasons (the house might have had some real structural issues, but I’m not sure). 

Everyone knew our pad as the “Happy House,” and I slept in a one-window attic room that I had painted a lurid Pepto Bismol pink. From my colorful aerie I could see half-way across town, which was especially useful when any of the fraternity brothers were due to arrive.

After an eventful year at the Happy House, I decided to upgrade, and lived with two successive roomies in a brand-new apartment complex a couple miles from campus. By that time, I had already been to Europe once, and had begun to shift my interests to another field, which had me transferring back to San Diego to finish a B.A.

Somewhere in the mid-to late 90s, I got a real job, moved to Los Angeles, got married, and then decided I wanted to go back to school – so went to CSULA for an M.A. in English Lit. There I learned, among other things, how to teach composition. I loved those years at CSULA, as well, but in a different way. I didn’t have the same kinds of friendships there as in my undergrad days, mainly because my mindset had changed, and the CSULA campus was more aligned with commuters than co-eds. Even so, I was still pretty active on campus. I served as the GSA President, and organized the English conference in my final year. (In the last photo, I’m greeting the Dean of Humanities at the time, Carl Selkin.)

I jumped into a Ph.D. program at UCR directly after that, but only stuck it out for one year. Circumstances had me and my then-spouse move up to the Bay Area, where he was to continue a surgical residency. I never completed a doctorate, so for some time, I remained in the liminal employment space that highly-educated, non-completers in the humanities often do – which is a limited number of plum jobs available in one’s area of expertise.

What transpired post-uni is a whole new chapter and potential blog post.