Travis Willmore:I don’t wanna grow up, ’cause I’m a PSU kid

Once you reach a certain age, it becomes clear that you’re never going to be a rock star, or a porn star or an astronaut when you grow up. At this point, the future starts to look a lot more hazy.

It’s extremely common for college students to change their major at least once or twice before they graduate, or to surf along as “undecided” for a few years while they figure things out. Nobody ever seems to get through school in four years. They always end up on the five-year plan, or the six, or the eight … eight years of college isn’t just for doctors anymore. But all this mind cramming is usually undertaken with the goal of applying it toward a career after graduation, where the new alumnus can look forward to a stressful, responsibility-laden career for the next 30 years.

People are missing the bigger picture here.

After three angst-ridden years of trying to figure out what my future career will be, I think I’ve finally decided on something. I want to be a college student when I grow up. If you play it right, college is a much sweeter deal than the much-maligned real world. So why not make college a lifelong career? So many people at age 40 or 50 are stuck in a mentally exhausting, unrewarding job with no apparent choice but to ride it out until retirement. It’s awfully hard to justify leaving behind a fun-filled life on campus for this kind of pressure. Sure, continuing your education indefinitely may not be as lucrative as moving on with a career, but it has to be possible.

Age is no stigma for a PSU student. This place isn’t called the “biggest community college in Oregon” for nothing. The student body isn’t the stereotypical fresh-faced crop of kids straight out of high school that you see at most state universities. There is the same diverse age range as seen at community colleges, with many people of the older persuasion returning to school in hopes of qualifying for a better-paying job. Nobody bats an eye at seeing a 40- or 50-year-old in class. And no matter how old you get, the freshmen stay the same age.

Getting good grades and a broad range of extracurricular activities on your resume should be able to keep the financial aid coming for as long as you need it, if you plan things carefully. Even if your grades aren’t that spectacular now, you tend to get better grades in classes when you know and get along well with the teacher. After taking several classes with the same person, you begin to get a better sense of what they look for in a paper, what kind of work rates an A. Taking classes with a teacher over the course of several decades will hone a crystal-clear sense of what they’re expecting from a project almost before they assign it. By this point, your grades should be impressive enough to rate a never-ending supply of government aid, long after your family has given up in horror on assisting you any further. With this and a low-responsibility part-time job, financial stability doesn’t have to be an issue. Come to think of it, neither does international stability. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a student deferment from every war that comes along in the next 20 years?

Some might feel that this career plan lacks motivation, but it takes a lot of motivation to successfully maintain the status quo for such a long period of time. So, I think I’ve finally found my calling. I started college in the engineering program, but after a year of that I was reminded of how much I hate math. All through school, teachers tell you that math can be fun. Math can’t be fun. Math is like digging ditches with your mind.

Then I was undecided for a shockingly long period of time. I considered becoming an English major, but everybody knows that English majors tend to starve to death after college, well before they ever have the chance to write the Great American Novel.

And then I saw that bigger picture. Why does there need to be an “after college”?

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2044, it is with a great sense of fulfillment that I stand before you today. Young and old, naturally born and clones, we have all been through a memorable experience here at PSU. It is now time for some of us to face our futures and go out into the real world. And it is time for the rest of us to head back to the nursing home and watch TV with bibs around our necks to catch the drool while the Social Security checks roll in.