I believe in going to specialists and experts. I believe that everyone has their niche. Following that line of thinking: if someone is going to college to be a psychiatrist, why do they have to take another 4 years of the same crap they took in high school? Isn’t this distracting them from the area in which they are hoping to be an expert and dedicate their lives? Shouldn’t college be about specificity and focus and NOT on being well rounded in an array of topics? The 12 years of school BEFORE college took care of that, no? Shouldn’t it be about zeroing in on ONE thing and running with it? I mean, when was the last time you sought out an accountant-plumber-personal trainer? Do ya need 4 more years of world history to be a shrink?
I remember when I was in high school and people told me that I’d like college because I could choose my classes. What a crock! College was just another high school – but with sex, alcohol and ashtrays. I was shocked that I had to take more of the same bullshit classes again in college, which is why I lasted about 3 minutes and dropped out. College isn’t really about what you want – it’s about perpetuating what the college administration wants – money – all hidden behind the convenient veil of independence, freedom, and education (or every college-goer’s favorite term: partying).
College is a business, like anything else. Ultimately, they are there to make money, to meet their enrollment quotas, and to stay in business. Therefore, their goal isn’t to make sure you excel at what is suitable for you or even that you pick a reasonable path at all, but rather to churn out as many tuition paying grads as possible. If it were any other way, there wouldn’t be such things as “basic/core courses.” What? Really? Everyone needs to take these classes regardless of their focus? Sounds like a way to get 5 years out of people who only need 2-3 years to be excellent at whatever their focus is. Trade schools have the right idea by cutting out all that tripe. Let’s face it; most people don’t know what they want when they go to college. What an expensive way to discover one’s self!
I think you should have your mind made up when you get to college. College isn’t the place to decide what you want to be; college is the place to become qualified at what you will be. Most people I know are NOT in the field they studied and aren’t making the money they thought they would. They’re in debt up to their f-ing eyeballs in student loans – this means the system is severely flawed!
So if you don’t know what you want, don’t be selfish and view college as a free-for-all and waste your parents’ money! Find out WHO you are first and what you want to be by knowing your strengths and by critical thought – you know, the kind of thinking you didn’t learn in high school. You also discover your passion by soul searching and research. This means ask people who are in the fields you’re interested in and ask them what the pros and cons are. Realize that college is a business and not a spiritual counseling, hippie fun time getaway for you to “discover yourself.” |
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Popular Articles
About Truthaholic
truth•a•hol•ic (trüth´ë´hôl´ik) n. 1 The relentless pursuit of uncovering and exposing the hidden meaning and true intentions of others through rationalization and analysis. 2 Having or showing strong reasoning skills and applying them in a quest for truth. 3 A cleverly constructed blog site containing witty dissertations about the truth in which each blog is appropriately titled with a line from a song and accompanied by a cute illustration. 
Posted by truthaholic in 
Your take on college is correct it should be for direction of the person, and the vocational choice one makes at that time in their lives…
The Police Wrapped around your finger
Woo Hoo Hey sugar how are you? I am now in the west loop 118 N Clinton 312-876-1600 hope to hear from you soon!
Dr Kev
You make a few good point about going to college with a clear plan but you couldn’t be more wrong about the value of “unrealated” course work. How could a psychiatrist open up a private practice without having some basic coursework in business or economics? How could any scientist publish papers/books without basic comunication, english, and public speaker courses. To be good in any field you must grasp the basics of many.
The system is not flawed – its the people who racked up their debt and didn’t do anything with their degrees. If the student loans don’t make sense don’t take them. College isn’t for everyone… the world needs ditch diggers too.
You know, I agree with you somewhat, but I have some misgivings. Firstly, high schools vary greatly in their academic standards. They are supposed to meet state and federal guidelines but we all know that there are a lot of kids who fall through the cracks. In some cases 90% of the school falls through the cracks, and granted a lot of them never make it to college. Other high school students may miss something here or there.
My point is this: A liberal education is an important part of a college education. It makes up for things you missed in high school and cements them more in some cases, but most of the classes are not even taught in high schools. Psychology, anthropology, business, etc. A lot of these introductory gen-ed classes either aren’t offered at the high school level, or aren’t taken by everyone.
Also, you do get to pick these courses and you should pick what you like. Not everyone makes it into the higher level math classes in high school and if you’re doing anything analytical you’ll probably need to take at least Calc I and some sort of statistics class. If not you’ll get in-depth into humanities or whatever else you might be going into.
Overall, college is a great experience, and a very valuable and worthwhile one as well. I have some grudges against certain parts of it, but you’ll come out a lot different than you went in. The second two years of college are very targeted towards whatever you want as well, so I don’t know where you went but you’re missing big pieces of the picture here.
First: The Police, Wrapped Around Your Finger.
I couldn’t agree more with you’re assessment of the business concept of college. The recent scandle at UofI is proof that it’s no different than running a city. It’s who you know and how the “friends of the program” benefit rather than if I even get in to a school to so I can graduate, make lots of money and continue giving it back to them as a member of the alumni association.
I started to go to college to become an architect, something I worked at all through high school. I worked for an architect for several years. Through a turn of events I ended up abandoning that and taking a job at an company out of economic neccessity. Turns out it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I worked at that company, happily, for 17 years. It seemed I had a knack for the world of color and have been in this industry for almost 27 years now. I am one of probably less than 100 people in the world that have the particular skill set I have.
So I managed to be one of the lucky people not saddled with student loans, I am gainfully employed, and I did not miss out on the wild years of partying and learning how to eat cold pizza for breakfast (which I have always felt was the real purpose of going away to college).
Cheers!!
Mark
While I am not technically a chemist (no actual degree or formal education) I am published. I will be giving my 3rd paper in October to a group of my peers, many who are Phd’s. So while I agree somewhat with your rational, I am proof that you can achieve many things without the need for a formal college education. What you can achieve is, in my opinion, a matter of applying yourself and hard work.
I agree and disagree with what you said about college. Those who rack up student loans while trying to decide what they want to be when they grow up are causing their own grief.
My father died when I was young, so much of my college was paid by Social Security. After that, I worked full time and went to school part time. Finished up my BS, MS and years later my MBA.
When applying for the MBA program, I was asked “Why do you want to get into this program, you already have an advanced degree?” I replied, “In thinking of applying for another position within my company, or with another company, I could tell them what I was capable of, but there would always be the possibility of doubt from those on the other side of the table. The degree would ‘certify’ my capabilities to those who hadn’t worked with me.” The professor responded, “So, you are looking at this program and the ensuing degree as a marketing tool?”, to which I immediately replied, “Absolutely!” I was admitted to the program and had a 3.9 out of 4.0 GPA.
I have learned to recognize most degrees as endurance awards. Jump through these hoops of fire, stand up on your hind legs and bark the theme to the professors’ favorite TV show, and you’ll get a good grade. OK, you learn other, more useful things along the way, but you also learn how to function within ANY set of constraints you are faced with. This last part is really the most important function of higher education.
For those who think they can EASILY achieve success without a post-high-school degree, I suggest you practice the phrase, “Do you want fries with that?” Without SOMETHING to set you apart from the other applicants, you just might “wind up working in a gas station” (anyone recognize that lyric reference?).
lomg time no hear!
yes its a bussiness,and there is alot of
b/s to get a b.s!
lets remember that there basics that must
be learned,and many goofs get into college
without knowing them (class and integrity should be amongst them)
if im gonna teach you the guitar i need to see your fundamentals before we discuss
major and minor penatonic or song structure.
perhaps it is redundant but remenber the study srtucture is different as well..
i attendended inner city schools and wasnt a good student…however college was different at least to me.(i didnt last too long either until i attended trade school,dunno why that clicked for me)
here is an idea try identifying each individuals talents and educate them that way…that would f ‘up the system…have people doing what they love and are talented
at and perhaps rid the schools of scum bag spoiled rich kids who arent talented at any thing!
White collar conservative flashin down the street
Pointin their plastic finger at me, ha !
Theyre hopin soon my kind will drop and die but uh
Im gonna wave my freak flag
I’m afraid I disagree with the blogger. Whilst I did not comprehend the necesseity of learning to disect a frog to get my degree in Accountancy – I DO understand the need for a wide variety of course work? Why? It has been shown time and time again that people will have a minimum of 5 very different careers in their lives. I have personally worked in Accountancy, Marketing, Cryptology, and now I work in a fitness centre (which I LOVE). I hope to teach some day. Had I not had classes in a variety of subjects I couldn’t have changed careers with the ease in which I have. Furhtermore, I discovered I didn’t actually LIKE being an accountant – if that was all I had studied at Uni, then I would have been in big trouble – and might have had to choose another career only to discover it didn’t suit either. A well-rounded education opens more doors for those who choose to knock. I also agree with the previous blogger who said we need ditch-diggers also. Uni is not for everyone. Finally, regarding student loans. I could never get one. Why? I made ‘too much’ money waitressing and bartending my way through Uni (yes, another mini career). I graduated debt free but I worked verrry hard to do it. EOB (end of blog).
College is not voc-tec. Yes, I want my psychiatrist and our pediatrician to know more about world history, physical sciences, economics, and sociology than he or she got sleeping through 4 years of high school. I also want people who are voting to have some idea of what goes on in the world outside their narrow specialty.
i disagree with you, sherrie … sorry! i WANT my doctor to have taken ethics classes [philosophy 101], i WANT engineers to have taken environmental science classes. i think specialization is one of the things that has yielded tunnel-visioned decision makers in our society.
think of doctors that prolong life, at great expense both financially and emotionally for families, without considering the impact that has on individuals that are left with the carnage that’s been done to families? think of engineers that build retaining walls along the south end of lake michigan, without considering how that will affect fishing in the upper peninsula? they don’t consider it because they don’t know any better. in their mind, a retaining wall exists in isolation and doesn’t impact or relate with anything else in a lake environment.
holographic thinking is so limited and rare in our society … and holographic thinking is the ONLY thing that’s going to save us in the future.
i had a teacher that used to say, “You know what a specialist is? a person who knows more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”
Hry Sherry! How are you?
I agree with “do what you love to do”… that way you are happy to pay whatever the cost! The term hard work would not apply here either since you would be enjoying yourself… it would then be play! Money is secondary. Your happiness should be your primary concern. Rememeber: Stress kills!
I could not agree more with you. Not to mention that the crap I learned in college was not NEAR as educational is the real life experience I aquired after I graduated. College should be series of mock ‘real life’ situations so that you know what you are getting into.