EDIT: Heh...I just wanted to let everyone know that the topic is about your community, not about getting a job. Though that is definitely an equally important topic and you are free to still discuss that too if you want :). After all, I suppose the job IS part of the community, right?

What made me question this is a little tiff I had with my family concerning my wisdom teeth removal. They pretty much treated me like I was a complete idiot and even had the nerve to try to throw "medical school" in my face (medical school is in quotes because the person really went to trade school for nursing and gave up...). Even when I had bold-faced facts in their faces, they still acted like I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. It made me think of all the other times people have done this to me and it made me realize that outside of the college community, I feel like people in my community do not respect or value my education. Whenever I get into any sort of discussion with people in my family, they treat me like I'm an idiot. Now I don't expect the people around me to bend to my every word just 'cause I go to college, lmao. But I would expect to be treated at least like I have a valuable input just like they do. I wish they would respect the fact that I AM an educated individual.

Personally, I'm only the second person in my entire family to go to college and I think that has a lot to do with it. Only a few of my close friends actually go to college. And most of the people I'm around on a daily basis outside of school don't even believe in college (think of those people that worry about "the Man" trying to brainwash the mind and such. Not exactly like that, but along those lines). So needless to say, I'm mostly in college by my own willpower and I get little to no support from the people around me (just my parents, my boyfriend, and one of my cousins). Because I'm younger than most of these people, they tend to think they automatically know more than I do simply based on the fact that they "experienced" more than me. I don't doubt the wealth of knowledge they can bring to the table, but it seems like they constantly doubt mine. Sometimes it seems like BECAUSE I'm in college they think my opinion is even less informed than usual...

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone else get this sort of "rejected" feeling from their community because of their education? If so, how exactly do you deal with it? My typical defense mechanism is really just to nod my head and go "Yeah...you're so right...I'm so wrong..." while thinking they are complete morons. But I don't like looking down on the people around me. I think they DO have valuable input based on their life experiences and that academics cannot really be the only knowledge that we draw from...we gotta have our life experiences so I respect them. But how do you deal with the fact that they don't respect you back?