Throughout middle school and high school, American students are constantly bombarded with the importance of college. For kids like me who took advanced and AP classes , it was pretty much a given that soon after graduating from high school, we'd be rapidly moving onto the next level. It was going to the best time of our lives. We'd gain a wildly different perspective on the world. We'd be elevated beyond our former selves. We'd meet lifelong friends. Sounds more like a cult than education in hindsight.
And really it is. College is an introduction to a glorious hive mind. Professors and fellow students will welcome you with open arms, if you think like them. The smallest point of dissent was enough to become an outcast in most of my classes. Resistance is futile.
What followed was four years of pure hell. Between two schools, it was pretty much the same. Everything, absolutely EVERYTHING, was about politics. It was inescapable. Even in a composition classes, we talked about unpacking the invisible knapsack of white privilege. And didn't really learn much about writing.
Being a feminist simply was the only option. Fellow students and professors assumed I was one. And at first, so did I. Then I started reading up on feminism. In the year 2015, feminism was a hollow shell of what it once was. I didn't want to be valued merely for the size of my victim complex, so I opted out of feminism. Yeah, not so easy.
I remember saying this during a presentation. I mentioned that while 1st and 2nd wave feminism had value in my eyes, I really couldn't get behind the crazy 3rd wavers who dyed their armpit hair to combat the patriarchy and other pointless drivel. Because of its current state, I couldn't call myself a feminist. My professor actually laughed at me and said, "If you believe in the equality of men and women, then you're a feminist. Sorry." At this point, I wasn't far enough down the rabbit hole to realize that this tired little bit of sophistry was the "but muh dictionary definition " argument.
This was the moment I realized I couldn't express my opinions freely. My fellow students, and my professors almost saw me as enemy, at the very least, as a heretic. This was not a fun position to be in. I felt like I didn't belong. And I didn't. I was problematic. I remember thinking that everyone must be like this now. What the fuck had happened?
Luckily for me, the internet exists. I rediscovered The Amazing Atheist, and much to me delight, he had a whole catalog of videos making fun of feminist bullshit. He was like me. Not a sexist, but most certainly not a feminist. From here, I discovered Sargon, ShoeOnHead, ArmouredSkeptic. I was alone on campus, but not alone in the world. There was still some sane people left after all.
I managed to get by, graduating in the spring of 2017. But, it was painful. I constantly had to hide my real feelings, or be seen as Nazi scum. In reality, I'm libertarian left. But don't try to point that out on a college campus.
I'd become a little bolder towards the end. I didn't hold back as much, to my own detriment. I remember telling an LGBT friend that America wouldn't implode after election of Trump, and that, more than likely, everything would be fine. I later found that I was Nazi scum and that this was a micro aggression. This was point where I pretty stopped giving a fuck what anyone on campus thought of me.
The Donald's ascension to power. That was pretty the nail in the coffin for any respect I had for higher education. The mood on campus was toxic, dismal, and dark. You would have thought there had been a mass shooting, not a democratic election. My inbox was full of messages from high-up campus officials, urging unity and strength in these dark times. One of my classes regularly had about 20 of of its 50 minutes devoted to listening to the professor preach doom and gloom. There were "post election discussion spaces" as well. Something tells me a free-thinking libertarian lady like myself would have been ejected immediately. But at this point, I really didn't give a shit.
Basically, a liberal arts college is place where you are taught what to think and sent out into the world to preach about micro aggressions and hetero-patriarchy. When I was done, I didn't feel educated. I felt like I'd spent four years resisting brainwashing. It was all a lie, a conspiracy almost. I didn't learn anything. Any change in my perspective had been self-guided and against the goals of the university. I had people I talked to, but they weren't my friends. The girl I was at school was a smokescreen to protect myself. They didn't even know me. But in the face of all this, I'd survived. Survived in spite of being a sexist, racist wrong-thinker.
Honestly, don't go to college if you want an education. If you don't have a degree you need for a specific field i.e nursing, biology, math, - just don't go. Instead, get a library card or a Scribd membership. Read books that interest you. Teach yourself about science, history,and philosophy. Listen to youtubers who challenge your viewpoints. Talk to others about politics and books online. You'll learn more, actually make friends, and save yourself several thousand dollars in the process. Please, I implore you, stay away from these wretched hives of scum and villainy masquerading as places of learning and free thought.
The SJW culture has ruined higher eduication. I saw the same shit when I went. The English and lingustics departments were ok at my school but if you took any humanities or visul arts classes you were fucked.
Yeah, I majored in English-Writing Track and it was pretty much a joke. At least I got my piece of paper, I guess. My college was pretty fucked in every department except the STEM fields and career training programs.
I'm calling the Dream police!
At my university, there is very much a strain of SJW shit floating about. Apparently there is a female only safe space somewhere, considering my luscious long hair I was tempted to visit it and if they got suspicious I would have just said I was trans but I was too lazy to do that.
However I never felt like there was this massive left-wing bias during anything I did there that was mandatory. Maybe it was the fact that I am doing a Bachelors in Business Informatics and not an art / social studies degree and decided not to touch politics with a 10-foot pole there because I know how sensitive of an issue it is to some people.
In some of the textbooks there were points about gender disparity but they more or less just pointed out that fact and did not suggest hiring based on superficial factors (I think one of them discouraged it).
I can't exactly remember what it is for, maybe it was a communication unit, but it was kinda sexist against women talking about how they are more emotional than men or something like that. Really took me by surprise.
The fact you had to suffer through that bullshit really sucks though, university isn't the place to force political beliefs on people especially if it's mostly irrelevant to the topic. People can do whatever the fuck they want for extra-curricular for all I care, run your drum circles to discuss how the latest Buzzfeed article was problematic, but the education aspect should remain politically neutral because every time politics are brought up it fucking derails the entire class.
With that said though, I feel as if some people bring this upon themselves. As much as it may interest people, it's such a better idea to not discuss controversial topics unless it's absolutely necessary. Any lecturer worth their salt doesn't want to know your ideology, they want to know how well you understand the content. I saw a guy touch on an anti-feminist point during a speech that was going to be peer-reviewed by someone in the class who was pretty about their social justice leanings. He later complained about that. Why the fuck did you even bring this up we were talking about the different styles of management.
Maybe my university is a rare case, but it was fine imo.
The English department at my school was highly politicized, and this honestly started with the professors. They tended to bring up controversial topics and encouraged students to take on their viewpoints as their own. I think I just got stuck in a shit department. Classes I took from profs in other departments tended to way less political and more about the actual subject at hand. From what I've heard, any kind of Humanities field is pretty much a lost cause at this point.
What a terrible experience you had. Sounds as though you were subject to group pressure from all sides. I've always been an outlier and found my experience at college, years ago, to be very comfortable. It was a large, urban campus. Fraternities and sororities were sort of laughed at. I'm certainly a strong feminist, but that comes from life experience, from being told I couldn't work at a certain job because I was a woman. Also from being hooted at in the street (I like my privacy).
I'm glad you found a larger universe (Internet and books). I think the key to being happy is to follow your own path, find your own truth. Stay away from cliques and small-minded people. I wish you well.