The Dangers of the Elite Institution Bubble

“When you get to college, you will have so many boyfriends,” my mom and dad would say to console me. I subsisted on a diet of so many dreams like that one. And so I had to be smarter, better in some way — or else what was I? Just an undesirable average girl? How is that going to get my into college? How is that going to get me a job? In the mythology of my family, our country’s obsession with elite institutions of higher education and my fledgling alcoholic brain, I couldn’t sit with that reality. I couldn’t sit with it for many years after. Because what kind of woman are you if you can’t get men to desire you? Yah, you are a scientist, but are you a hot scientist? Will you turn people on when you clutch a test tube with bright red lips for the magazine shoot? Yah, you are the boss, but do you wear 4 inch heels and does your staff dream of fucking you? <a href="https://medium.com/@virginiakooi33/i-was-primarily-driven-in-high-school-by-the-sick-notion-that-i-either-had-to-be-smarter-than-7600b356397f">Website</a>