Finding their own American Dream

Dream big. Shoot for the stars. Anything is possible.
These are all sayings parents tell their children in order to bring about their own dreams and aspirations.

With graduation right around the corner, it is time for the Keene State College seniors to put their four years of education to use and try to make their dreams come true. But for some graduates, that American Dream won’t come right away.

Belief in the American Dream is that it is the gateway to the future, the portal to all possibilities. The history of that dream has been something people in this country have heard about since early education when learning about the history of the United States. For some KSC students, the American Dream is both a history lesson and hovering on their future horizons.

KSC senior and management major Lee-Ann McAuliffe said her dream growing up has been a consistent one. “It always changed and it pretty much was just to be comfortable and not struggle,” McAuliffe said.

She said she never has been the type to dream of one day owning a mansion; instead favoring a place large enough to accommodate her needs. Currently, McAuliffe’s dream is to use her management degree from KSC to her own business. She said she would like to open a “modern day bed and breakfast.” McAuliffe said she is glad her dream changed as she grew up. “I feel it is more attainable and more respectable than rolling in money,” she said.

She said she knows it is going to be a lot of hard work once she officially graduates on May 8 but said she’s up to the challenge. And it’s a challenge that seems to meet everyone once they move out of their dorms and are in the real world.

Fresh out of the 2009 KSC graduating class, Steve Walton is still searching for a way to reach his dream since he graduated almost a year ago.

Walton, who graduated with a communications degree, said as a kid he wanted to be what most kids wanted to be, an athlete or movie star.

Since maturing, Walton said he has experienced things that make him more aware when it comes to his dreams. “I can differentiate a dream from a fantasy,” Walton said. “I’m able to see things that are possible and things that may be possible.”

Walton’s American Dream has morphed from being an athlete or movie star to something he said he sees as more realistic.

He said he wants to find a well paying job that gives him the opportunity to live a life allowing him to do anything. Walton said he also sees a family with two dogs as part of that dream. But being a recent college graduate, Walton hasn’t reached his dream yet. He doesn’t have the job he wished he had. Walton said he currently works as a valet while in search of more permanent employment.

“Part of me feels like college is a waste of time,” Walton said. “It’s a business; we give all this money and, when we get out, our degree does nothing for us.”

A fellow 2009 KSC graduate, Jesse Campbell, has had a little better luck in reaching parts of his American Dream. Campbell, who graduated with a degree in English, said after a summer of no work, he got a job at the Suffolk University bookstore in Boston. A friend then told him of an opening at a publishing company and put in a good word for him. Campbell said he formally applied at a temporary employment agency, and was able to get an interview with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and got a job as a project coordinator.

Campbell said his dream has stayed the same since he was a kid. He said he always wanted to write and his job allows him to. He said he has always wanted to read all the time and he still does.

“In many ways, I’ve accomplished that part of my American Dream, to live a certain way that I choose for myself,” Campbell said.

He said he believes it is possible to have multiple dreams that are part of a larger lifelong dream.

“I see my own dream like a spool of film shooting out a canister falling willy nilly into space, all connected and black,” Campbell said, “unfolding everywhere, revealing new dreams at every passing stage of life.”

For these three young adults, the idea of forming and achieving an American Dream has been something they have grown up with and sustained their entire lives.
Campbell said he remembers learning about the American Dream when he first started school and even later in high school.

“My earliest memories of it were probably from elementary school and talking about how the Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower from England to escape religious persecution,” Campbell said. “And came to America looking for new opportunities in the land of hopes and dreams.”

Campbell said in high school, he read books like “The Grapes of Wrath” and “The Great Gatsby” that started to shape his American Dream.

“It was books like that that really got me to start thinking about the American Dream and about heading west and conquering the frontier to make a better life,” Campbell said.
The phrase the American Dream, according to the Library of Congress’ website, was first seen by author James Truslow Adams in his book 1931’s “The Epic of America.”
Adams wrote the American Dream was “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

Walton said he remembers the idea of the American Dream as a tale of immigrants coming to America to escape their situation and country.

“The American Dream was this belief that if you were able to live here [U.S.], anything was possible,” Walton said. “Because they felt that everyone who lived here was better off.”
The idea of the American Dream in some people’s minds is more than just the history of achieving a goal.McAuliffe said she doesn’t remember much from learning about the American Dream, but, when she hears that phrase, an image pops into her head. She said she sees “white fences, puppies and housewives” when she hears American Dream, but that’s not her dream.

 For Campbell, when attaining an American Dream, “It’s 10 percent determination and 90 percent luck.”

He said there is a good chance his dream will come true now that he is out of college and in the real world.“It’s all chance, and if I don’t do something about it, then nothing will come of it,” Campbell said. “Right now working in publishing is a good way to start.”
McAuliffe said she believes it is up to college students to start the fight to achieve their dream.

“I think the work starts here,” McAuliffe said. “This is the beginning of the fight. It will most likely take many years.”

Chris Hopkins can be contacted at chopkins@keeneequinox.com.