robglazebrook.com

You will never hear me say that I’m sorry I received my education.

Admittedly, there are some days I wish I were using my degree in a more direct manner. I spent seven years obtaining first a Bachelor’s in English, then a Master’s in Rhetoric. And now I’m a web developer, using skills which were almost exclusively self-taught.

But my degree still helps out. My training in English and rhetoric has taught me how to express myself clearly, which is a valuable skill in any company. And my time in the Master’s program taught me how to teach, which is a skill I use indirectly every day, and will start using more directly again this March. And of course, it’s always fun to see people’s reactions when they discover my degree is in Rhetoric. In all, my degrees really come in handy.

But what I ~do~ openly regret is the amount of debt I managed to accrue during my seven years at Iowa State. See, I paid my way entirely with student loans and part-time jobs. And during the time I was in school, tuition rates doubled. The result being that by the time I graduated, I’d managed to rack up over $60,000 in student loans.

Had I been smarter about these sorts of things all those years ago, I would have logged on to a website like Scholarships.com, filled out a scholarship application or two, and saved myself a whole lot of money, heartache, and years of debt. The website is free, secure, private, and has a database of over $19 billion in scholarships and grants. Some of that could have gone towards my education, my future. I just wish someone had been around to tell me about such a valuable resource when I was going to college. Instead, I have a M.A. degree, a job I could do with a B.A., and the debt load of a Ph.D. You do the math.