The Gift of Undeserved Opportunity

Today was exciting and new.  It was the first day of new beginnings after my summer of transformation as today I, in so many ways, became a college student with my first college class.  Not that we did much of anything except listen to what the class would be like, but it felt collegiate with the wood floors and the desks on risers so all students could adequately see the lecture.  The professors had initials in front of their name that made them seem at an upper echelon than any other teacher I have had thus far, except the Dr. Harris. 

Not that this is true, as I have had very high quality instructors.  Some of the best teachers of what they do have taught me and I could rattle off a list right now, except it is irrelevant to what I am about to write about.  What made an impression so strongly on me this morning as I was walking to the commons for a bagel, banana, and a glass of chocolate milk was that soon (four years- your determination if this is soon or not) I would be a highly educated person.  In America, I would be what I think of as “moderately educated” with a college degree.  However, moderately educated is really just a scratch on the surface, until you realize that so many walking around do not have a degree of any sort.  Just having the high school diploma already sets me apart in one sense on my educational journey with roughly 13% of the US population never having obtained a high school degree.  If I was to snag my college degree, I would then join 39% of our population.  Then going forward, if I was to get that Masters of Divinity that sounds so appealing to me, I would join 8% of the United States.  [This brings up an interesting question, however.  If teachers are required to get a master’s degree, which puts them in the top 8% of our educated class, why are they not paid in the top 8% bracket?].  My new teachers, many of whom have doctorates or the equivalent degree, make up only 3% of our population.¹

Then I started thinking about the world.  In this world, with almost seven billion inhabitants (which, by the way, is way too many) how high am I already?  How far will I go compared to others who will never have the opportunity to go higher than what they learned at home.  Not only did I become more confident for my day as a college student, but I also paused to remember how greatly I have been blessed to be in a country with such a large value on education.  

All I can be is thankful: thankful for what was given to me, unfairly, at birth, thankful for the opportunity to go to this college, and thankful for the gift of chocolate milk which I greedily devoured.   

¹Numbers from "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009". U.S. Census Bureau. 22 September 2010. http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2009/tables.html.