I had a conversation with a good friend from college yesterday night. It was his birthday and it had been quite an interval since we last spoke extensively. While we enjoyed each others company, and were fortunately still bonded by a shared sense of humor and were connected by the semblances of our shared experiences which weve done our best to cling on to. During that conversation, a despairing reality (which Ive incidentally observed with some of my peers when they relate to their kin) revealed itself to me. The revelation is simply this.. Four years of being entirely immersed in academic discourse and seamlessly adopting the use of more theoretical, academic and esoteric (& jargon-y?) vocabulary has made me increasingly inaccessible to a large majority of my friends and family. This insight is slightly unsettling to me because I have largely taken pride in being someone who was accessible/relatable, because I observed this happening with my peers but did not think it was also happening to me, and because I have zero intent/desire to use language that is incomprehensible to others. Do keep in mind that the large majority of my peers from my life past (whatever the stage) would have very likely went on to pursue professional, vocational, applied and perhaps technical forms of tertiary education and like me, would not have been exposed to such vocabulary (and the ideas that they form) in our time in primary and secondary education. I am not putting a value judgement on my time at Trent as being superior by any means, but that divergence in life paths is likely the reason for this gap. Being aware of this is a good start but, it seems inorganic and forceful to be perpetually attempting to opt for a different word than the one that comes first to me. It would also put me in a position of being presumptuous and condescending if I assume they do not understand me. If youve made it this far, I am hoping for shared experiences and perhaps some advice! Thank you very much! *WARNING: I expect this will undoubtedly be one of many potentially reflexive/nostalgic/sentimental posts about my undergraduate career which you will be subjected to in the upcoming weeks/months.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 01:24:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015