Attending college.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

My accidental community college enrollment.

By David Joel Miller, writer, blogger, and mental health professional.

My writing a book came as a surprise to almost everyone.

Growing up, I didn’t know anyone who had written a book. Most of the people I knew in my family had minimal education. The idea of going to college was nothing I had ever heard about at home. I wasn’t a particularly good student and really wasn’t sure how someone should go about getting a job and earning a living. Let me tell you how I got from a very poor student to a published author.

I wasn’t sure I was going to graduate from high school.

Looking back on my high school experience it was exceptionally positive. As an only child, I had relatively few friends. Moving two or three times a year makes it hard to maintain friendships. It was even more difficult when I was in high school. No Internet, no email, no cell phones, and no texting. I lived in a home without a television set for most of my life, so even when the kids at school talked about what was on TV, I rarely had any idea what they were talking about.

Some of that was the times. Some of that was the family I came from. Even once TVs became commonplace, my family resisted them on the grounds that this was a device invented by the devil to allow him to get easy access to the family. I would’ve invited him home for dinner if I had known how to do it.

Middle school had been a disaster. I moved from one school to another, and the new school put me into the Z lane. They designated the lanes X, Y, and Z. The presumption was that X Lane was for the smart kids and Z Lane was for kids who should compete with the monkeys for the manual labor jobs. Somehow, by calling them X, Y, and Z rather than A, B, and C, they thought they were fooling us.

I didn’t do well in the Z lane because I had no idea how to work with my hands. In shop class, I was better at breaking tools than using them. Halfway through the school year, they decided I wasn’t suited for the Z lane and transferred me to the X group. I suppose it’s possible that I had the IQ to do that work, but coming in partway through the school year, I was hopelessly behind. My classes were changed a couple of times.

By the time I got to high school, I didn’t expect much of myself.

I drifted along in high school. I really enjoyed the experience. It was the only time in my life that I started at a school and ended at the same school. Maybe I should correct that. My second time in the Master’s program was started and completed at Fresno State University, but it was a long trip from the Z lane to a Master’s degree.

The fact that I graduated from high school surprised me. Looking back, I think I was expecting too much out of myself. I didn’t need high grades to graduate, and I certainly hadn’t put much effort into getting high grades. At that point in my life, I couldn’t see how getting all A’s would make my life any better than getting all C’s.

At home, there was never any discussion of my going to college. I heard a little bit about it at school, but I never seriously considered applying to a college or university. I had been interested in being a photographer and had worked part-time for one who went to the same church we attended. It was a last-minute decision that I might be able to learn some things about photography if I went to the local community college, so I enrolled there, knowing nothing about their course offerings.

I learned later that the college I enrolled at didn’t offer a photography program. I went there for two years, taking all the general education and some business classes. Basically, I took what the counselor recommended but quickly shifted to taking whatever I was interested in. That interest certainly didn’t extend to English or writing. I was firmly convinced I had no ability in that area.

My only yardstick for comparing my own education was my father’s.

Of my four grandparents, only one had graduated from high school. That one high school graduate was my grandmother, and she died when I was still in the third grade. No one that I knew of in my family had ever attended college.

My father had attempted to go to Bible seminary and become a pastor or missionary several times, but it just never worked out. He took one or two classes at the community college but didn’t complete them. I toyed with the idea of going to Bible seminary, but by then, my faith in what I’d been taught about religion had seriously weakened.

All my parents would have helped me somewhat if I’d chosen to attend Bible school. Any support or assistance for secular education wasn’t going to happen. So, I took my chances at the local community college.

I got to the community college, and suddenly, something was very wrong.

I had struggled all through high school, and suddenly, in college, I was getting mostly A’s with a few B’s sprinkled in. I wasn’t sure what to make of this phenomenon. One thing I did know was that I avoided taking classes like English that might require writing papers. As much as possible, I tried to take classes that involved test-taking. My favorite type of test was multiple-choice, and I was almost always able to spot the correct answer hidden in the fog of wrong answers.

Gradually, my major shifted from photography and art by way of psychology and sociology to becoming a business major. I didn’t finish that first two-year degree at that time. I got married and, shortly after that, became a father. I spent the next fifty years more or less trying to earn a living and supportive family while returning to school off and on until I finally finished my A.S. Degree and then a bachelor’s degree in business.

I learned some important life lessons going through that process.

One thing I learned was that I had a lot of talents I didn’t realize were there. I didn’t get much encouragement along the way, and I had come to believe that I wasn’t very capable. Once I challenged that belief, it turned out I could accomplish much more than I had ever imagined.

I also learned that the majority of all learning, 80% by one estimate, is emotional, not intellectual. Subjects I liked I learned easily. Subjects I disliked, or once I thought I had no aptitude for, I struggled every inch of the way.

Another thing I discovered was that I had a natural curiosity and love of learning that kept pushing me along. From here, I want to tell you how that love of learning and curiosity finally resulted in my current career and becoming a published author.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller.

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

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