Is college right for you? I’m not one to say, but I said it anyway. I took to my other site, Scryptwriter, and wrote a full article on whether or not it’s beneficial to attend college (and why it probably isn’t).
Here’s just an excerpt:
Everyone seems to have a college degree, but no one seems to use it.
We graduate from college ramping up scores of allegedly useful facts and critical thinking skills that ultimately teach us only how to do what we probably could have done already.
It used to be that once you graduate from college, you’re a commodity. Not everyone had a degree 20 or even 10 years ago, but thanks to the advent of the government figuring out that they can make a lot of money from hyper-educating people who have no business attending a liberal arts college, the value of a college degree has deflated tremendously overnight.
You’re not ready to grow up, so you go to college. Just like that, adolescence has been extended, and we buy into it thanks to shows like Greek, Undeclared and every college movie since American Pie 2, which have convinced us that college is a party we can’t miss out on.
Correction: a very expensive party we can’t miss out on.
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It seems like these days, Bachelor’s Degrees are the new high school diplomas and Master’s Degrees are the new Bachelor’s Degrees. Employers seem to value people who have continued to pursue higher education after the first four years than those who simply stayed with the four years. The bare minimum just enough anymore.
I think the university system in North America has painted itself into a ridiculous corner by marketing themselves as a vehicle to procure a career, employment, financial comfort etc. Who doesn’t want this? So a massive amount of people want a bite at the apple and like pointed out probably 75% of these dumb bunnies have no business being there. Now the majority of students are there to receive a degree and don’t give a whit for learning. The University has now become a customer service based industry where the customer is always right so they now institute grade inflation because high schools have been doing it and nobody wants a sad kid/customer so everybody gets a B even though your work is D quality. Any professor that doesn’t participate in this farce is a big fat meany who has too high a standard because, well, in a culture that has made a fetish of the child, no personal responsibility could ever be forthcoming. So we are ending up with a society in which, because everyone is excellent, no one is excellent. And China eats us for lunch. Ivory Tower Blues, a book written by a couple of Canadian professors, is one of the only alarms being raised to warn of this massive problem that is scarcely being acknowledged. I wonder what the tipping point will be?
What I am doing now (and turned a career out of it) is simply something that didn’t need me in college at all, ever. I’m making good money now, but at what cost? I took loans for room and board for somewhere I didn’t use four years to my best advantage. Now, is that my fault or is it the system’s?
The last day of class I had in second semester of college, this professor gave us a speech about how we were wasting our time at school. That we had to REALLY love knowledge & theoretical stuff to be there because otherwise it was all a waste. That if what we wanted in life was a commodity of money to live okay & happy in a material world, we should better drop out & get a job (Monster University like, though this happened a couple of years ago). Then he went on about how we wouldn’t get a job after graduating because we’d be overqualified & nobody wants to pay for that.
The speech lasted a good 40 minutes & I agreed with him. I mean, I didn’t drop out of college but he made a lot of good points. (Also, he’s been one of the best teachers I’ve ever had so he gets some merit there).
It all was a sort of mock-reality, & I was surprised to see some classmates either disappointed about life OR angry at the teacher for telling them the truth without sugar coat.
It’s funny: in my first english course I took in university, my prof was determined to debunk the idea that university was a place “buy a degree.” We’d go over papers about student entitlement, the commercialization of education and the archaic top-down teaching method.
I’m in second year now–a year I’ve found has come with a curse: people hate second year with a passion. They start questioning if the money and time is worth it, grades sink to an ultimate low (looking nostalgically back to those years in high school when you thought you were a genius), and for what? There is something wrong with this education system, especially if the ultimate goal is well paying job (which, as you point out, is not a guarantee.) In fact, if university ends up as some sort of safety blanket for those who are too used to the pattern of the education system to leave it, then it’s definitely doing something wrong.
Yes, yes, a thousand times over. And I say this as someone with two degrees who currently works at a four year (right) liberal arts institution. College is not for everyone and shouldn’t be shoved down people’s throats that way.
I agree! In My country (Indonesia) the minimun requirement for graduated student is to make a thesis! A real thesis! Thesis that will never have any relationship with our job in the company…
It does not matter if you have a degree. Associates, Bachelors, Masters, Ph.d, it does not matter. In today’s America, either you have experience or you live in a box. The problem is that all jobs ask for experience. That means if you have only a degree and no experience then you will not get hired especially at the Federal level. How can you earn experience if no one will hire you? I hate when jobs post experience and/or education. Its always the people with the experience getting the jobs and they have been working for years before it became impossible to earn experience.
College and Universities are highly overrated . As a matter of fact a college education is worthless if you are unable to earn a income of at least 50.000 a year . You must have a Bachelor of Science to usually earn that type of income . It’s as if this mixed up society acts as if you are not credible as a human being if you are not educated . I never earned over $10.00 dollars an hour as a college graduate and I’ve been out of school since 1985 . There’s only a handful of decent paying jobs or careers . It’s not what you know it’s who you know to get your foot in the door for a rewarding career . Take this into consideration about your earnings ( even if your earned above 50 grand a year ) . After your taxes , your living expenses , how much of a disposable income do you have left ? A good friend of mine has one daughter that is a court reporter ( it took Tammy less than a year to earn a certificate ) and the other that graduated from a medical trade school ( Regina earned a one year certificate from a medical technical school ) . Both are married with families and homes in the suburbs . I’m now 53 years old , chronically underemployed living in a homeless shelter with drug addicts , ex convicts and economically destitute people who lost their jobs . I really resent my snobby and superficial parents for demanding that I finish college or else ?
I worry about this- because I am 35 and I have done the high school diploma route which was miserable, I hate not being able to just be comfortable or okay, always worried about money and if there will be enough. So I went back to school, now I am racking up debt, my husband is about to be an engineer, but me? I’m in Anthropology, I write a lot of papers and I am good at it, but in the real world no one cares about academia or papers. I wonder if I should have gotten a trade, should I have learned how to wield? It seems stupid to not get a higher education, and then it seems stupid to bother with it at all. It is kind of depressing really.
It’s not what this society hypes it up to be Shannon . And I do agree with you , in the real world no one really gives a damn if you have a college degree . This country ( though I love to be an American ) is obsessed with money and greed . Just as long as you pay your living expenses and make your own way in life , people necessarily pay no attention to your educational status . There was an acquaintance of mine by the name of Mark I knew years ago . He was a general contractor and very successful . He had contracts with over several big apartment and housing complexes . He had a crew of electricians , plumbers and carpenters under him . At the sport’s bar on Sundays ( during the football season ) , Mark would drink his coffee and read the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal . With an investment portfolio , a townhouse in the suburbs , two Ford super cabs and a top of the line Harley Davidson , everyone respected Mark ( after all he was a very nice and modest guy ) . So the point of this comment is Shannon that it’s not how much education nor your social status in life : it’s how you carry yourself . Thanks for sharing your opinion with me Shannon . Okay later !