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I think colleges just do a terrible job of actually saying what they do. The purpose of an undergraduate education isn't the simple transfer of knowledge, it's
by enjo 16y ago
I think colleges just do a terrible job of actually saying what they do. The purpose of an undergraduate education isn't the simple transfer of knowledge, it's more about "learning how to learn." The thing I've noticed about the self-educated is that they are absolute experts in the thing(s) that they're really interested. It is rare indeed to meet someone whose intellectual curiosity takes them to the places that a simple undergraduate education will.
In college you were exposed to philosophy, literature, and a host of other things. That self-educated guy generally knows a lot about quantum mechanics, but has never bothered to read a classic novel or has never heard of Kant. All of those things form the basis and experience that allow you to learn from the world around you so much more efficiently.
I don't think college is broken, I just think the expectation that college is somehow a four year skills-training institution is fundamentally flawed.
My viewpoint on this has definitely evolved over the last decade. At 22, fresh from dropping out of college after my junior year, I would have written the same thing. A decade of experience has taught me the value of what I learned in college.
- mquander 16y agoIt's equally rare to meet someone whose undergraduate education takes them to the places that a simple undergraduate education will. I'm 23, so I have plenty of friends and coworkers who are just recently out of state schools, and the vast majority sure as hell don't remember the classic novels that they might have skimmed over the course of two weeks, three years ago. I generally can't detect that they know anything at all that they didn't know in high school, outside of their major.
- enjo 16y agoWhich is why I intentionally used the word "exposed":) I can't really recall very many specifics from my world literature classes either. However my psychology class taught me that the exposure to those novels and their concepts informs my decision making in some small way even today.
- mquander 16y agoOK, I agree, for what that's worth.
- nostrademons 16y agoWait, so you believe that your world literature classes inform your decision making because your psychology class told you so? I'm somewhat ambivalent on the question of whether my liberal arts education actually made a difference in my life, but "because I heard it in psych class" would be at the very bottom of my reasons to believe so. If you're going to hold the opinion that a liberal education teaches you how to learn and informs all your future decision-making, hold it because experiences have corroborated that, not because you read in a psych textbook that that's how it's supposed to work. Textbooks do lie, y'know. ;-) Otherwise - well, you haven't really learned how to learn, have you? If the point of a liberal education is to make sense of the world around you and form your own opinions, and you're still regurgitating things you read in a book, that liberal arts education has failed.
- enjo 16y agoI'll respond in two ways. First of all, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. However, yes I do take much of what I've learned at face value. After all, it would be foolish to take years of expert research and toss it out because I personally didn't conduct it. Unless it runs wildly counter to my personal experience, I have no real reason not to trust it as the best scientific explanation at a given time. Thankfully my personal experience most certainly corraborates it. There is a world of difference between healthy skepticism (consistently questioning scientific theory through empirical observation) and doubting for doubting sake. I haven't personally verified that the earth orbits the sun, but I'm pretty sure we have that one right after all.