Kristina

College is expensive.

No one is arguing this. College can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but students deal with the cost because colleges are supposed to be institutes of higher learning, training them to be experts in their chosen field.

“Colleges are businesses,” says Kristina.

Her opinion comes from more than four years in Stony Brook University and just over two semesters at Hunter college. Kristina graduated from Rocky Point High School in 2007 and entered college in the fall. Her chosen major was chemistry, but she switched to environmental after a year. Environmental science was not what she had imagined it would be.

“We once spent an hour an a half of class time discussing which type of orange juice was more environmentally friendly,” she says, laughing. “I took some random classes after that, and I finally found I liked anthropology.” She decided to become a forensic anthropologist, and has dedicated the rest of her educational career to achieving that end.

Kristina had to stay an extra semester to finish her degree, fighting her adviser’s lack of knowledge about he major the whole way.

Kristina took a semester off after attaining her bachelor's to apply to grad school and work as a bank teller. But her experience at Stony Brook had not been ideal, and she didn't get into any of the schools she applied to.

“They all wanted someone who had field experience,” she says. “Stony Brook only offered field experience for another $15,000. I had enough loans to pay off already.”

One grad school, Hunter College, made her an offer. If she took some classes as a non-matriculated student, they would let her become an official student the next time she reapplied. Though it was costly, Kristina accepted, and by the fall of 2013 she was officially pursing her masters in Anthropology. She moved with her boyfriend to the Bronx where he had a job and she could be closer to school.

In addition to being a part time student, Kristina works at Barnes & Nobel as a head cashier. The pay isn't minimum wage, but the high cost of living in the city means that she still struggles with finances.

“If my loans weren't on hold because of school I'd be losing about 2/3rds of my monthly salary trying to pay them off,” she says. “I have no idea what I'm going to do after graduation. I've tried to talk with the loan company on the phone but they're so frustrating.”

Kristina doubts that her experience at Stony Brook was worth any of her trouble and money.

“College was a waste of my time,” she says. “If my major wants field experience, why aren't there field schools? Why do I need my master's and a PhD? I have yet to take a single scientific statistics course or a class on interpreting data. The only thing I've learned in six years is how to do research.”

Post graduation, her future is uncertain. Some Hunter graduates work at the NYC medical examiner's office or the 9/11 Museum. There are internships available for these locations, but they are extremely competitive.

One thing is for sure, Kristina is excited to leave the Bronx and move to Queens next year, which she says is much more friendly toward people her age.

“The Bronx is very family oriented,” she says. “But in Queens there's more things to do and more people our age living there.”

Kristina may be uncertain about her future career, but she has shown great amounts of dedication to her field of study, fighting through less than ideal circumstances in her dogged pursuit of her degrees. Any internship or company would be lucky to have such a committed individual on their team.