College has hidden rewards

I finally get it: A college education can't empower me to solve all the world's problems.

It sounds like a naive assumption to begin with, but as a freshman I thought that by learning to be a reporter I would have the power to reveal all the corruption in the world, one story at a time. I dreamed of being Bob Woodward and getting to take down a president if I spent countless hours tracking sources and writing attention-grabbing opening sentences.

One of my first revelations came when I enrolled in a learning community called Naked America. It was a first year program that focused on how the seedier side of American history produced an incredible culture that relates back to the struggle for freedom in Ireland (one endorsement: take a class with Laurence Shine, you will not regret it).

I think my big epiphany came with the closing of public school Campus West at Buffalo State College. I covered the story for a class and met the parents and students who loved their school. Then I sat in on the meeting between President Podolefski and the parents. While I respect the president of the college for making a very tough decision, I still walked away from the meeting furious. I know something about Buffalo's public schools and I know that some of the students who were dispersed probably ended up in worse schools. The upside: Buffalo State got more parking spaces!

This semester I learned that the problem of violence in the world is too big for one country to solve. In history of the Mid-east I learned that of many of the problems are a result of European manipulation of tensions among cultural sects leading up to and after World War I. The US's involvement only added fuel to the fire. More than any other class, I have learned that universal equality is not and never will be possible.

That doesn't mean I'm giving up on the world. As a reporter I now have an understanding of how my limitations in not being able to take down "fat cats on Wall Street" render me free to explore stories that may one day have prominence in the future. My best advice to all students: pay attention in class because you never know when a teacher will turn your world upside-down.

Kristine Starkey can be reached by email at starkey.record@live.com.