The Inferiority Complex of the Hick High School Graduate

I made my decision during my first year of high school. What has followed has been a consistent string of reactions.

“You’re not going to college? But I thought you were going to do something big!”

“Come on, you have to go to college! With the world as it is right now, it’s impossible to live life without a degree!”

Sometimes the response is not made through so many words, but the meaning is the same. A frown. A shocked look. A mere, startled question, “You’re not going to college?!” Or a raised eyebrow.

I realize that, oftentimes, many of these reactions to my decision not to pursue a college education are unintentional; and some are even kindly-meant, such as the urgings of those who believe the only way to survive life in the 21st century is through possessing a degree. However, in the seven years since I made the decision to forego a college education, I have consistently received any number of the reactions listed above, or something similar.

I had big plans for my life at one point. From around the age of seven, I already had my career path planned: I was going to be a doctor. I thought of myself as nothing but a future member of the medical field. I had a doctor’s kit I played with regularly. I had a doctor’s “clinic” set up. I pretended I was a student in medical school. I regularly asked my mother to keep “Human Body” workbooks in my pile of homework so I could start preparing now for what would come later. I even enjoyed being in the hospital after an operation for acute appendicitis because it gave me a chance to “visit” my future workplace.

So, you might be asking, what changed? What turned The Success into A Failure?

Things just didn’t square, for one thing. Like for so many other girls, in my early teenage years marriage suddenly became an attractive thing. My mother was never one to pretend, and she always made it clear to me from the beginning that, if you’re a Catholic, with marriage comes children. Add to that my reading of the Baltimore Catechism’s ruthless explanation of what the ends of marriage are and I realized there was more to it than the fairy-tale romance portrayed by society—at least at the time; society’s romanticization of marriage has fallen at a surprising rate in only a decade.

In addition, I always had a hard time agreeing with the feminist view of female empowerment. I believe this is due to the fact that I grew up in a household where I regularly witnessed my mother’s example of how, in the hierarchy of marriage, the man holds the authority in the household and his wife ought to be submissive to him. As an 𝕏 user commented recently in a post that strongly resonated with me: “We often forget little girls are still on factory setting [sic]. The feminist propaganda hasn’t sucked their souls out.”

It was during the first semester of my freshman year that I started to realize that the life I had so carefully planned out throughout my childhood, and for which I had waited for so long, was likely never going to come to fruition. The program I was homeschooled with required students to take an Education and Career Planning course. And as I wrote out my yearly plan for the future and saw eight years of my life go into med school for a career that I would likely not be able to balance when I got married—if I was sure of one thing, it was that I had a strong desire for marriage—I realized I was in for a miserable life. It was not what I wanted.

I was wary about admitting any changes for the future, but the writing was on the wall. When Covid hit and I delved deeper into studying the Catholic Faith—and learned about the detrimental effects of feminism on society—I faced the writing and made my decision. In short, as I tell people who ask why I didn’t pursue college, the costs outweighed the benefits.  

In the seven years that have passed since I was a freshman, I have had to come to terms with people viewing me as a waste, a subpar citizen—perhaps even a detriment to society. I could have been “more.” I could have been “something big.” As it turns out, I was only worth something so long as I was getting an education. Now, because I am not following a path that will bring a degree to my name, I am worth nothing.

Not all people I meet are this way—and to those who do not make me feel inferior based off of my educational pursuits I am grateful—but those who are have learned to make me flinch whenever the question of college comes up. The same goes for other young people I know who have chosen not to pursue college. This is a burden we will be compelled to bear by society, perhaps for the rest of our lives.

Uncomfortable though they may be, I do not automatically attribute these conversations to ill-will from the people who initiate them. During the past few years, there is something that has become increasingly apparent to me: society underwent a collective brainwashing when it comes to education. Education is the modern world’s sacred cow. This is evident in how people react when someone decides to go against the grain and forego a college education. It is the ultimate tragedy. Again, I do not blame the people themselves. Like feminism, idolatry of education has slowly seeped into people’s minds through cultural messaging, to the point where it appears unimaginable for someone to choose a different way of life.

It is so unimaginable, in fact, that it is acceptable to tell a young person fresh out of high school, “I thought you were going to be something big,” without it being considered the least bit hurtful.

This viewpoint is the most repulsive when it comes in response to a young woman saying that she chose to bypass college to focus on being a wife and mother. To practically call someone “useless” for choosing to devote herself to one of the most noble duties—a duty so noble that even our Blessed Mother undertook it—-should be unimaginable. Firstly, it is an unnecessary application of pressure in the already-confusing society young women are living in. Secondly, it is downright cruel.

I chose to title this piece “The Inferiority Complex of the Hick High School Graduate” because the types of reactions from people I have detailed above do, indeed, make us feel inferior, even if we are firm enough in our decisions not to be budged by the opinions of the general public. I do not say this to bash those who change their minds about going to college as a result of the opinions they receive from family members and friends; knowing how strong the sway is, I sympathize with them. I myself have reconsidered whether I made the right decision in deciding not to enter college many times in the past seven years based on the opinions I have received from people.

It is wrong, however, to measure people’s worth based on their education. Yet this is the way of the modern, tolerant world—a world so tolerant that it will consider every path wrong save the one it approves of. We should change that.