Is it the problem that school teaches how to follow directions instead of think for ourselves? What does most of school consist of, even at the college level?

Is it the problem that school teaches how to follow directions instead of think for ourselves? What does most of school consist of, even at the college level? Following directions. Make sure you paper is exactly 20 pages long, get the right answers to the even number math questions in the book. Not until you emerge in the real world at age 22, do you finally get a chance to think for yourself. You lack street smarts but a lot of (questionably) valuable information on Political Science, Western Civilization, Algorithms, Data Structures and Cobol. Most of my liberal arts education could be picked up (much cheaper) with a library card or a Kindle. I think internships and apprenticing are a much better option. How much did my computer science/economics/poli-sci education help me in the real world as a programmer/software developer? Not much. On the job I Learned how to research and experiment on my own, while questioning everything (while being allowed to, without some crusty know it all prof shutting your down). Corporate culture is actually a little better for pushing the boundaries than academia.