With television shows on E! such as “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated,” “Living Lohan” and VH1’s “The Fabulous Life of…,” do young woman get the idea that in order to be “fabulous” you need to spend your life savings on shoes and bags?

I get it that “Sex and the City” was a cultural phenomenon. I myself got sucked into the luxury that oozed from every second of that wonderful HBO series. When I began college and started watching theshow, I thought I had my life figured out. Graduate with a journalism degree, move to New York City and become fabulous. Check. Check. Check. I would be wearing Manolo Blahnik stilettos and carrying Fendi bags in no time, right?

As school wore on, my “budget,” as my parents called it, was substantial and endless, I thought. As it turned out I was wrong on both counts. I relayed into living the fabulous life. As many women in college start meeting people from affluent areas and try to compete with and top them with status and labels, you find out quickly that affording these designer labels is completely unrealistic.

Then comes the sorority. The bottomless pit of competition. Who’s skinnier? Whose parents have more money? Whose house is bigger? Whose boyfriend is going to medical school? The list goes on…and on…and on.

I met woman after woman who actually took out loans in order to be able to afford not only sorority dues and cost of living, but also designer purses and clothes. What happened to sisterly bonding? No, we have to be living in our own little “Sex and the City” world. If things aren’t “fabulous” then you lose. You’re out. No matter if youare working hard, intelligent and finding out that these things aren’t important.

I was definitely one of those girls, fighting to be at the top of the food chain. Take it from me: it’s exhausting. Now nearing graduation and realizing that the real world is very expensive, the last thing on my mind is the new Marc Jacobs bag that might be on sale at the Nordstrom semi-annual sale. Now, my mind is on how I am going to pay rent.

I now am able to watch shows like “Keeping up with the Kardashians” and laugh. I laugh at the fact that I once thought my parents, who are successful in their own endeavors, would pay for a lavish lifestyle that only those in Beverly Hills enjoy. I laugh at the fact that most of the designer labels the Kardashians carry are free and given only because of the press they get, because sorority girls flock to their shows in order to have a taste of this lifestyle. I laugh at the fact that I thought that my parents’ success would make up for my lackthereof. And I laugh at the fact that I thought that would make me feel like a complete person.

I am barely keeping my head above water, but I am doing it without any label-motivated agenda. I am doing it because I am responsible for my life. And if it happens that one day I become successful professionally, it will be of my own doing. And I will finally be able to afford that Marc Jacobs bag, hopefully still on sale at the Nordstrom’s semi-annual, because I worked my ass off for it. And I will again be laughing, not at myself, but at the 20-something walkingdown the aisles, on the phone with her father, crying because she does not yet understand the things that I, gratefully, now do.

Kelly Cass can be reached at [email protected].