Sure, college is important. It's the traditional pathway to the middle class and the professions. But we're living in a nontraditional time with a nontraditional economy. Have a look at these pictures/stories.
And here's an article by a high school senior that suggests college should come with a warning label.
What are your thoughts? What do you expect college to do for you?
{Thanks for the articles, Dave Pell!}
Recently I've been looking at a lot of these type of articles and for lack of better words they're pretty "freaky". The way a college degree was explained to me was as a comparison to a fast pass at Disneyland. If you had the fast pass, you'd get ahead of everyone else in line. Unfortunately if we stick to this analogy then the price for a fast pass has grown extremely high and even with it you end up near the back of the line. It's a scary thought really. If I do attend college (which I've been mulling over for quite some time now) I would HOPE to get a good education out of it and with that education I'd hope to be a step ahead of the game. Whether it will do that or not, I do not know.
ReplyDeleteSince junior high, students have been given presentations that say "If you graduate from college, you will make about $10,000 more annually than someone who only graduates from high school". Many of us have grown to accept this as truth. While many others see that in order to succeed in life, you have to know the right people (connections, networking, etc...). We ARE living in a nontraditional time in which making it big is a matter of you, not just where you went to college.
ReplyDelete60 Minutes did a segment in which Peter Thiel gave grants to young brilliant minds to pursue their promising ideas IF they dropped out of college. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7409142n
College, just like high school, is a stepping stone in life. I think college is a great place to not only learn but also build connections that will help you in the future. Colleg is what you make of it, not what it makes of you. Sure, going to UCLA or Stanford will give you an edge when applying for occupations, but what if you could know ahead of the competition that the job was open? Your friends or colleagues will likely notify you that there is a job opening before setting up an ad. You make the best of college and college will pay you back in the future, well that's my way of thinking...
My thoughts on this article are simple. The world is diversly changing in all aspects. Yet the subject of the matter that iritates me, is the fact that literature and language are no longer a necessity in todays culture. With that being said, I now question how it is we will be able to solve Americas political, national, and other wordly problems. Such as disagreements between the United States and differing locations. Will we use slang? Or perhaps a incorrect use of written words( u = you, 2 = to, r = are). But yet perhaps that is why we have a national debt in the first place, as stated in Dave Pell's article. Perhaps we are to lazy to fix the problems at hand, as it shows in our texts. And maybe, just maybe, if we had an abundance of professions in those categories, we could actually solve or even just help the problems we have caused for ourselves. Thus being said, I now pray that college provides me with the intellect and oppurtunites to succede farther then what todays society has adopted as being the typical human being. And hopefully help others along the way.
ReplyDeleteIm sorry I used Dave Pell's name incorectly. I meant to talk about the high schoolers article. But in turn put the wrong mans name.
ReplyDeleteIt's not everyday that we hear a college education leading us to a job at McDonald's or a babysitting job at home. Usually, with a college education we'd expect a well-paying job as head of a corporation or as a type of doctor or a type of lawyer.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up my parents have encouraged me to attend college because that's something they never got the opportunity to do. Being an Avid student also shows me the good that comes from taking the road towards college. Presentation, guest speakers and teachers have told me that by attending college I'll have a better advantage than the rest.. but will I really? After seeing those pictures and reading how we're living in a nontraditional time, it's hard to tell how certain it'll be of me obtaining a job in my major. That doesn't mean I won't attend college, it just means that when the days comes i'll have to go in open minded like everyone else.