Bubbles in the real world

Throughout college I hear comments about the 'real' world as if I some tripped into a trap door reading "not real world"as Thee Oh Sees played for me (give them a check out, and if you want a recommendation from their 15+ albums let me know).

Environmental Studies has constantly shown me what it means to deconstruct--looking at an issue, word, phrase, idea, picture, and picking it apart. The real world is what I thought I was living in, although I'm suspect that we're ruled by lizard people and capitalist patriarchal white supremacy pigs, but if this comment of the real world referred to as outside of the classroom keeps reoccurring there must be something to it. This phrase alludes to the classroom, university, or school in general as some sort of bubble that doesn't reflect what other places of work, living, and play are. 

If this is true, what differentiates the borders between this bubble, are there other bubbles, how many bubbles are there, who gets to blow these bubble lines, and what's the point of university preparing a "work force"/"critical thinkers" if not for the real world? For some of us this knowledge of environmental degradation is our lived reality, and the case studies mirror parts or whole of our lives. Does this mean that according to the real world/bubble distinction that our lived experiences are now discounted as "subjective" soft serve, which melts away under the hot breath from ivory tower scholars? 

I've been fortunate to attend university, and under the program I've gone through what our program leader calls "the 12 step program" (Ray) of Environmental Studies. Many around me, within the program and outside of, experience this bouncing back between feeling apathy to agency. Is this a millennial problem because we're "so sheltered, privileged, or delicate that [we] cannot “take” the reality of environmental crisis or social injustice?" (Ray 1). As Tim Wise, Nick Montgomery, and carla bergman speak about, the privileges that people hold shelter them from the lived reality--"case studies"-- around them. What does this mean? It's a conditioning where there is no sight, smell, sound, or notion of violence that is planned from groups with power, wanting to keep power, and probably accumulate more. When this mindset collides with "reality", the real world, there is friction, shock, disbelief, frustration, anger, depression. 

It's exactly these experiences which transform people, and I'm no exception, from blissful ignorance to an accomplice, build bridges of solidarity, and turn the world upside down....and maybe this is where the real world is found. As author Dannielle Davis proposes, "[c]ritical service-learning considers the complexity of history and misdistribution of power in social contexts prompting students to become agents of social equality via critical analysis" (1). A mouthful, surely, but lets further 'deconstruct', and don't worry, this rambling block of hoopla words will come to an end soon if you're still reading.  

Critical service learning, according to Davis, is doing more than what is asked from the community partner. We're working consciously with the knowledge accumulated economic forces putting profit above people, land, and most life, and how this unequal distribution has thrown the balance into a twirl. As students we learn about the layered issues surrounding resources, power, and privilege; many of us became familiar with the whirlwind twirling dance (trying to) balancing course work, jobs, activist work, social life, and general humaning upkeep. Capstone is the transition course where we take the theory we've accumulated and alchemize this into actions. Although activist-scholar Delcastillo states how "[s]tudents are asked to wait until they get their degree to engage with the theory" (4), this isn't always the case. Capstone is the first time slot made available for students to become engaged, a permission given to act. For others this isn't their first time experimenting with what works and what doesn't. To those in this bubble, outside, and between any other arbitrary borders,