I was having a conversation with my much younger friend today. We’re both graduating this semester, and moving away from Chico.

“What are you doing after you graduate?” he asked me.

“I’m going to work for Union Pacific Railroad.” I said with a grin.

“You need a college degree for that?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you want to do something with your degree?”

I thought for a moment.

“Nope.”

He looked perplexed. I continued.

“You know what I can do with my college degree? I can sit in stop-and-go traffic for 90 minutes on my way to work in the morning. I can go to the same building, the same job, the same cubicle farm, the same desk, the same computer, the same meetings and all that shit day in, day out, every day. I can work late because they really need me to, I can work Saturdays because they are really short handed, and I can come in early because extra work needs to be done. At the end of the day I can drive home for 90 minutes in stop-and-go traffic, get a few hours of free time, and go to bed. When I wake up, I get to do it all over again. After a couple of years they can lay me off because my job is being shipped overseas, so the CEO can get a big phat bonus. That’s what I can do with my college degree.”

He looked at me, obviously thinking about what I just said. He turned his gaze to the ground, and stayed there for a bit. When he lifted his head he turned to me and simply said:

“Yeah. Me too.”

Yeah.

I know what I can do with my college degree. I just choose not to “use” it.