College Envy
By Daniel Miessler on July 16th, 2006: Tagged as College | Personal | Psychology | Sociology
I got to visit the Harvard campus while I was in Boston last week. It was rather ho-hum actually, but I had a very strong feeling leading up to it.
As I considered which campus to visit — Harvard or MIT — I was taken back by a rather strong pang of envy. I felt all of a sudden like I wanted one of those educations.
This happens to me every once in a while — I’ll get this feeling of, “Given what I’ve accomplished with my education, imagine what I could have accomplished with a degree from (Harvard | MIT | Stanford | CalTech).
This strikes me as quite…not me. I’m really not one for regrets or negativity of any sort, so I don’t see why this keeps springing up on me. It could have something to do with my still being a senior in college, i.e. not done with my bachelors. But even then my degree wouldn’t be from one of the amazing schools mentioned above.
Sadly, I think I’m experiencing some semblance of belonging-syndrome — the feeling that makes people want to join gangs, churches, and fraternities. Odd that it would happen to me this late, and only about prestigious universities…
Anyway, not quite sure how I’m going to deal with it. It’s not really bothering me that much or anything, but I dislike cognitive dissonance in my life. I shall seek it out and crush it.