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high school began to feel as musty and claustrophobic as an old broom closet. I wasn’t the type to cut classes intentionally, so I signed on for a community work/study program which allowed me to leave the campus most afternoons by lunchtime to help teach at a local elementary school. But every other aspect of the school routine was boring or frustrating, even my boyfriend was beginning to drive me up the wall. I was sick of climbing into his secondhand brown station wagon, despite his willingness to drive me anywhere I cared to go. I was tired of his Pall Malls, his grimy basketball jacket, his dumb jokes and the way he guffawed after reciting them for the third or fourth time. I was sick of the corner coffee shop where my girlfriends and I met to share hot fudge ice cream cake. Each week I felt more miserable and disconnected from geometry homework, blue gym suits, football games I no longer bothered to attend and gossip. The only class I still liked was Drama, presided over by a gaunt, unkempt teacher, Mr. Wilder, who bore a passing resemblance to Ichabod Crane. True to his name, he was wild-eyed and stringy-haired, fond of giving us eccentric pop quizzes with only one question: “Why Drama?” or “Why Art?” We never discovered whether there was a correct answer.

When I learned of an early-admissions option to a nearby university, I rejoiced. I took great pains with the application, viewing it as my parole from the prison of home and high school. Antioch University, which was based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, had opened a branch in a Maryland town not far from where I lived. The campus was far enough away, however, that I could shed my old life like a second skin. I was ecstatic when the acceptance letter arrived, and my glee increased when I learned that the campus didn’t even have dorms. Much to my parents’ dismay, I’d be required to live off-grounds in an apartment or townhouse, like all the other students. Things were definitely looking up. I left for college midway through my senior year, giddy with goodbyes and solemn with the knowledge that I would now begin my formal education.

January in Columbia, Maryland, brought long snowy days and new roommates who liked to sleep past noon in the messy apartment we shared. I trekked to the college center and tried to figure out my course schedule, which I found an utterly bewildering process. Antioch’s pride in being a “University Without Walls” meant some classes were in Baltimore or Washington, D.C., and required regular travel to and fro on the college bus, which (depending on weather, maintenance or whim), might or might not be running at all. The times on the itinerary of scheduled trips bore little relation to when any of my classes were due to begin or end, meaning I might be stuck in Baltimore with no way to get home. I didn’t know what classes I was supposed to take, or how many. Was it all up to me? The college advisor whose care I was assigned to was on sabbatical, and no one seemed especially concerned that we might not meet up for awhile.

My slightly older roommates weren’t much help. David put his feet up on one of the wooden spool tables which graced our apartment, took a swig of Chianti, and wondered if he could get course credit for hitch-hiking, since he’d already seen so much of the local flora and fauna that way. At Antioch, the notion wasn’t completely far-fetched, since “life credit” was given for any number of experiences outside of class, provided you could write them up as academic studies. We argued about whether cooking brown rice or learning Cat Stevens songs counted as course work or just messing around. Allison played guitar late into the night or got drunk and read poems to her puppy. She never seemed to study, and I only saw her tramp through the snow to the student center once the whole term.

At 17 years old, college was bewildering. There were no tests, few guidelines. The list of required reading for each course was long, but no one seemed worried about whether you had done any of it or not. In class, I listened shyly to impassioned discussions about civic responsibility and diversity and feminism, hoping one day I’d be brave enough to chime in. Students leaned their elbows on big round tables in the cozy classrooms, smoking and refilling their coffee cups from thermoses. Some of the professors looked as young as we did, though they were evidently better-read. On my visits home, when my mother and father asked about college, I couldn’t give them a cohesive, coherent description. Who could say exactly what the intriguing, esoteric classes were really about? I wanted to tell them what I had really been learning outside of class - slide guitar chords and how to make quinoa pancakes, where Planned Parenthood was and how to make a dress out of an Indian bedspread - but I knew that not a morsel of this would pass muster in my parents’ eyes.

A year into my new academic environment, I reluctantly admitted defeat. I had jumped exuberantly, college loan in hand, into an experimental college life, and now I was drowning. I couldn’t make sense of the University Without Walls. My faculty advisor was still on sabbatical, and everyone else seemed too busy to help me sort out the chaos. Maybe I needed some walls. I got a job at a restaurant and transferred to a community college a few blocks from my apartment, where I took children’s literature and business courses, all tied neatly at the edges with tests and grades.

Occasionally I received letters from friends who’d had better sense, heading off to an Ivy League school or state university. I envied their dorms and sororities, bonfires and lecture halls and junior year abroad. They seemed to have career directions already. I wished with all my heart that I’d taken a more normal route, or at least one which hadn’t led to the edge of a cliff. I felt that I was a failure.

Time loops over and around itself; the Wheel of Fortune turns and turns again. One of the great mysteries of my life is that ten years later, I found myself enrolled again at Antioch. This time it was on the San Francisco campus where I jumped in feet first, armed with a great deal more life experience and self-reliance and direction. I completed my college degree, sincerely enjoying the process. Intervening years had given me a solid appreciation for that first early college experience which once had so overwhelmed me. But Antioch turned out to be a terrific mirror of real life: not too many celebratory bonfires, no faculty advisors, but some great discussions late at night, and a thought-provoking reading list. My college year was only the first chapter of my lifelong journey as a student, one wonderful classroom in a world without walls.

Stacy Appel is an award-winning writer in California whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and other publications. She has also written for National Public Radio.
She is a contributor to the book You Know You’re a Writer When.... Contact Stacy at WordWork101@aol.com.