Old School: Both Sides of College in the 70s

My mother was born in the 1950s and lived through some of the most cultural enriched decades in America. I could go on for hours about every aspect of her life but I choose to shrink it down and ask questions questions for a time period that I can relate to. And that is her transition from college to high school and what the drug and alcohol scene and other college aspects was in the early 70s. Everyone I know drinks a beer or smokes some weed at one point or another in their college life and I want to see if the same went on in the campus of Bridgewater State College in 1971 where my mother Marilyn Southam attended. In her own words "a lot has changed in the college since my experiences for both better and worse".

Bridgewater State Campus Center

Getting There is Half the Battle

According to my mother “getting to go there was the hardest part of college”. She grew up in a small house in Seekonk, Mass which is a small town not know for having a big city life. She went to Seekonk High School and graduated in 1971. The school was a decent size with her graduating class consisting of around 180 kids. Around junior year as she said “decisions needed to be made” and ultimately that is when she decided she wanted to further her education to college. This idea however can as a surprise to her father. She is the youngest of her two sisters and both of them never attended to college so to her parents this was a brand new idea. But after what she says “months of begging” her father finally agreed to send her to school. My mother says “I am so grateful that he let me go and I know he was always proud of me to the day he died.”

My mother and parents at her college graduation

Actually Attending Class

My mother had a lot to say about classes in Bridgewater compared to classes that are taught in today’s schools. She says that the classes today are in fact harder and that they pack a lot more learning into today’s lessons but she wanted to stress the point that “you don’t know how easy to have it”. When she says this it is intended in the technology sense. She had to use typewriters to write her papers and she wanted to let me know that there is no “delete” key on a typewriter. Also she talked about the lack of internet in her college days. She would have to trek to the library and go thru books and books to find the information on the subject her papers were on. She told me that “google was not even an idea yet” and that we have it way too easy with search engines.

A fancy typewriter in the 1970s

18 and Legal to Drink?

Although my mother was a top notch student let’s be honest a college student is going to drink and that she did. But she did it legally. Her freshman year of college Rhode Island changed the drinking age to 18 and that is only about a 5 minute walk from my mother’s hometown of Seekonk, Mass. She says that “you haven’t felt awkwardness until your drinking a beer next to your senior year math teacher.” So she was already used to hitting the bars then her sophomore year at Bridgewater while she was 19 years old Massachusetts changed their drinking age from 21 to 18. So she was living on easy street. She would hit the bars every weekend with all her friends and did not have to worry about bringing a fake id.

My mother with her friends in 1973

Unknown Territory

Like I previously mentioned my mother was the first one to go to college out of her sisters and her family. So when she graduated she could not ask for help finding a job because none of her family went through it and she was lost. She was starting to second guess herself going to college. Although she had her degree for teaching no school was hiring. But then a middle school in the town of Berkeley, Mass gave her a teachers aid position and she worked there and got her masters at night. And as she looks back at her college career she said “I wouldn’t take back a second of it.” After asking these questions and learning about my mother’s college life it has become clear to me why my parents have pushed me so hard to attend college. Because my mother knows firsthand it can and will better your life.

Works Cited

1 & 1. "Other Models." Machines of Loving Grace. Web. 09 May 2011. .

"NEFFA History." NEFFA: New England Folk Festival Association. Web. 03 May 2011.

Southam, Marilyn. "Final Project Research." Telephone interview. 01 May 2011.