First week, first year of college, first discussion section. A simple religion class repeating the basic theological concepts I had been learning continually since birth, but this particular discussion would leave me with a new question I had not yet considered.
Many of you may be familiar with the initial meeting of discussions that our beloved University has deemed as "let's-meet-the-other-kids-in-your-class time." My section opted for the traditional truth and lies game, where each student writes down a couple of facts and a couple of falsehoods about themselves and the rest of the class gets to guess what's true and what's not. So when we asked the kid if he was really a millionaire, he responded, "No! If I were a millionaire, I wouldn't be in college."
Bam! It hit me like a bullet in the temple. And that 9mm round is still ricocheting around in my skull, tearing apart my cerebral cortex, demanding incessantly, "Why do we go to college?"
The answer of course seems to come quite naturally with waves of "That's what you do after high school," or "So I can get a job." But the entire concept has gone awry if these are our only motivations for our intellectual endeavors. Instead, shouldn't we respond with an idealistic "To learn more and further my knowledge of life so I can pass it on to subsequent generations?" Well, if you're that idealistic, maybe you should try looking around at your classmates more often.
Sure we may be the top-ranked public university in the country, but how are we really being prepared for real world life? We take classes on topics so specific that even the names become a little ridiculous. What exactly do you gain from pursuing a semester in Theology, Ethics and Medicine? Is reading a bunch of literature on assisted suicide really what you had in mind when you came to school? Or are you just going with the flow and holding off on getting a job a little longer?
I don't mean to belittle any of your academic pursuits; my only point is to question if our education is really increasing at this point. We all graduated high school with big plans and high ambitions, then we somehow lost them in the mix of dorms, alcohol, the opposite sex and reality TV. The children who desperately wanted to get rich quick have now begun to realize the terrible reality that they are doomed to a life of middle class mediocrity.
And what about the fellow who said, "If I were a millionaire, I wouldn't be in college?" Well, he is a little off too. Most everyone at this school has met or is friends with someone who, because of their family's fortune, will not have to work a day in their life. Nonetheless, most everyone these days still goes to college. Now, whether or not you plan to do anything with a degree after completion is a different story all together.
Most recent graduates have opted for an even further pursuit into intellectual stimulation: Grad school. Why, you may ask? Well, to learn. . . right? Well, did you ever think that they might just be holding off a little longer since there is an overflow in the current job market and they have nothing else to do?
Regardless of your level of cynicism, ask yourself why you are in college right now. You might find out something about yourself you didn't know before. If it's for the beer and the women, I have no problem with that, but you might consider that you can drink beer and hit on chicks without paying $11,000 out-of-state tuition a semester.
Of course the main reason I am writing this is because of a personal angst that has been building up inside me, and after relaying my emotions to a few peers, I realized that either the feeling is mutual, or I am hanging out with a bunch of liars. It seems simply that I have become dumber since I got to college. Laugh all you want, but if you think back to how much you knew when you were younger, try to remember most of it now. Instead of taking the basic knowledge we gained in our earlier years and building a life out of it, we continue to learn more, or at least try.
But the sponge of our brains has become saturated. No more soaking up of new material without disposing of the old. Now I am not literally saying that when you learn more about the lives of blacks in Augusta County in 1872 you will immediately forget how to tie your shoes, but I think it did replace a good bit of AP Calculus.
And as you debit your basic motor skills and credit your knowledge of politics in Tanzania, you realize that none of your assets are liquid and you might have to call home for more money. But haven't you gotten a little too complicated? Don't settle for working somewhere with your name on your shirt, but try to humble yourself a little bit and think about the sheer absurdity of some of the things you have learned and try to alter your consciousness back to a manageable level. Or you could just take second year College student Mike Resnick's advice, "If all I do is sit in class and play Wonderword, I think I'd be better off working for the Postal Service. I mean at least they have cool cars and free uniforms."
So as registration for new courses begins this week, try to take something that interests you and not the gut course that every other frat star is taking. If you are going to replace your ability to balance chemical equations, make it with something worthwhile that not only interests you, but has some relevance in the world outside of academic debate and scholarly journals that are unread by the public.
And if you do forget how to tie your shoes, Wal-Mart still sells them with Velcro.
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