Currently paying way too much money at UC SC.
It's close to 15k per year, and there are no grants or scholarships for white people with rich parents. My parents are textbook over consuming middle-class americans: they make a lot of money and spend even more money, so there isn't any money from them for me...
I'm working on a double major Biology and Philosophy (focus on Media Studies), the biology is mainly for getting a job one day. I'm also eyeing Law/Med school, but I don't think I would be a good lawyer since I don't believe in the law too much, and even though getting into med school would be a breeze it's just not the life style I want.
Elitism is rampant in Law and Medicine and I don't think I can get over the fact that people will think so much less of me for not going to elite college X. Also my background in Media Studies has made me cynical to a lot of the silly assumptions that doctors and lawyers have about things like IQ and poverty and minorities. The only good news is that (since my IQ is higher of course) I'll humiliate them if they argue it with me. It'll only get better when they try to cite silliness like The Bell Curve.
If you're wondering why I'm so repulsed by this elitism it's because I've spent my entire family life surrounded by doctors and lawyers and I'm just oh-so unimpressed by it all now. Also I've come to hate the white bourgeoisie values that I grew up with.
Anyway despite all of this, I still can't get away from the feelings of inadequacy that I have. I sort of messed up when I chose to go to UCSC. I could have gone to Berkeley or UCLA (or UCSB or any UC), but I got swept up by how beautiful Santa Cruz is. Even though I really like going to Santa Cruz and living here, I feel like their is a separate class of well-connected elites coming out of places like Columbia and Penn. Some of them are smart and all should be well educated in theory, but the ones that I've met have such a depressingly sheltered world view that I sometimes wonder whether we live in the same country (or if they've ever read a book...). I was thinking of transferring to a Liberal Arts college somewhere, like Haverford. It's probably more elitist in a lot of ways (White people... White people everywhere!!!), but hey... I'd be well connected, which is apparently what matters nowadays.
Last thing I want to do it pose a statement for thought which is:
A college degree (in America) has become a sort of safety net for those who have them. As the income gap widens, a degree is a sort of insurance that promises (falsely???) to put those who bear them on the side that gets richer.
