Scrambled Eggs with Extra FOMO

By Chloe Hodnett Editor

Hieveryone! My name is Chloe Hodnett, I’m a fellow student at Housatonic with you. I honestly never thought I would even be going to a school, let alone sharing my advice about it. I had always HATED school passionately. I hated that I had little say in my classes, I hated the “popular kids,” I hated it all.

because I simply wasn’t made to be a student. So I dropped out. I dropped out at 16 years old with a fervent disdain for any organized learning environment, scoffing at any inflated institution charging 70k to be paraded around and fed dining hall scrambled eggs. No thank you.

I was, however, very lonely. I had grown up with kids who did the whole four-year pipeline, and going completely against the “normal” behavior was isolating. I felt the dreaded FOMO many of us are familiar with. It’s easy to forget the insurmountable debt my former classmates are facing when I’m seeing their dorm hijinks on their Instagram stories. I recognize these problems are trivial, but I think a lot of you will understand what I mean.

I thought the reason why I was always falling asleep in my classes and failing tests was

We all know that it is beneficial to have an education. I had been educating myself with Youtube, but as it turns out, Youtube does not give you a diploma. The truth of the matter is, having a diploma helps, not just in the job market, but in developing confidence and strength. Despite my quarrels with quizzes, it says something about someone when they’re able to do things they don’t necessarily always want to better themselves.

So, here I am, and here you are, bettering ourselves, one quiz at a time, without all the debt and scrambled eggs. We should all be intensely proud of ourselves.

Housatonic is a campus filled with hardworking, interesting people. This being said, I don’t know enough of you. Though my feelings towards schooling have changed, the fear of missing out is still there, nagging at the back of my neck like a hungry mosquito. But I think that’s something we can fix easily.

Even though it may seem uncomfortable or scary, I want each and every one of you to start a conversation with someone in the courtyard, or bring an instrument to play in the music room, or compliment someone on their outfit. Something. Social interaction bridges the gap between quizzes and the things you might not want to do. It keeps you here, bettering yourself, because the only thing you need to be missing out on is student debt. There’s your homework, See you next class!