The Importance of Showing Your Scars

I’ve decided to do a five-part series about my thoughts on communication in higher education. Will I complete the series? I don’t know. Will anyone care about the series? Probably not. But, this stuff has always bothered me, and I need to get it out. I will do my best to avoid blanket statements, but if some slip in, just know that I am fully aware that not all schools do these things.

Have you ever played the video game Arkham Knight? The idea behind it is you are Batman over the course of one night in Gotham. Over the course of about 10–12 hours your job is to save the city from thousands of villains. At the beginning of the game, Batman looks like Batman: cool suit, belt full of sharp, pointy, techy things, and an awesome cape. By the end he still looked like Batman with a cool suit, belt full of stuff, BUT he now has a tattered, beaten up cape. This post is about how higher education communication departments should tell more stories about their students tattered, beaten up cape. Get it? No? Keep reading.

There’s something disingenuous about the way we tell stories in higher education, especially when it comes to sharing student experiences. In short, we forsake the actual journey and focus on the idea of success. Notice, I said “idea of success” instead of simply success. The idea of success is a whitewashed version of what accomplishment actually is.

Without failure—of any sort—there really isn’t any weight behind achievement. You ever noticed how “I came, I saw, I conquered” is a lot less interesting than the stories behind your battle scars? There’s a reason for that; the bruises make you who you are and shape who you are to become, not your successes. So, why do we only tell simplified stories, devoid of struggle when promoting a school?

Well, we’re afraid. We’re afraid it might seem hard. We’re afraid it might seem long. We’re afraid that students might not enroll. Honestly, we seem to be afraid of the idea of failure and that fear often becomes engrained in the students that we are trying to protect. It’s such a lost opportunity to legitimately promote the idea of a caring, diverse community.

You see it all the time. “I’m [insert name]. I wanted to be a [insert profession], so I went to [insert school]. Now look at me, I’m a success.”

Cool story, bro. But, what did it take to be a success? And, what does that even mean? How did you do it? Did you struggle at any point? How did you overcome it?

Let’s start telling those stories, and focus on the idea that not everyone goes through school unscathed. Some people fall and have to get back up. Some people fall and need help getting back up. I think those stories are more interesting, useful, and will probably help more.