Who's Who Amongst College Students?

[sathor]

"It should always be remembered that college students are the reservoir from which our nation draws its leadership strength. This feeling about American students is the guiding principle behind the Who’s Who Among Students program and our efforts to proudly continue to aid campuses in honoring students who demonstrate consistent excellence."

Excuse me? What kind of insulting balderdash is this? Since when did going to college, or having a degree, confer to ANYBODY any DEGREE of merit? THAT, my friends, is reserved for those who DO. NOT for those who have yet to. And it should be remembered that just because you've been given the key to the gates that some may not enter, out there - somewhere - is probably someone better than you, without that key. More deserving of whatever position you obtain...more entitled to whatever income you receive.

Just a thought.

The more I read this shit, the more I examine college and university propaganda from the outside...the more I recognize the utter CLASS WAR that is going on, right under our noses.

Comments

[noximist.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the argument you're making, beyond the fact that you've apparently grown to scorn the very concept of formal post-secondary education. Which part of that quote is causing you to take umbrage? They're saying that most of America's leaders are university graduates - or, at least, former university students - and that their aim is to aid the students who "demonstrate [...] excellence." That could be measured in terms of grades and/or volunteer work; the standards they're using aren't clear from that passage.

Either way, the statement may be "propaganda", but it isn't inaccurate. You're confusing a necessary condition with a sufficient one, it seems - they're not saying that earning a degree confers merit. Rather, they're saying that the sort of high-achieving people who end up in positions of power are the sort who have earned degrees and who excelled while doing so. How many politicians, heads of state, and mid- or top-level CEOs don't have at least a bachelor's? Essentially none, and the notable exceptions (Bill Gates always springs to mind) are singular.

Leaders of people and of industry tend to be educated, because the ambition that helps them rise to power also drives them to excel at what is known to be a general prerequisite for success, and also because there is a minimum level of education required to perform high-level leadership tasks. I want my doctor to have been to medical school, and I want my CEO to have a deep understanding of both business in general and the industry in which he or she is ensconced.

You can call it a class war if you like, but unless the US is completely different from Canada, almost anyone can pursue a degree there. Ivies provide complete funding to high-achieving people who cannot afford tuition (and who, again, are the type of people that quote is talking about), scholarships are common, and most state colleges don't cost any more than Canadian institutions. I don't know anyone here who wanted a degree and didn't get one, except the unfortunate girls who had babies at the wrong moment - and even they are finishing their education now, a bit belatedly. The leaders of tomorrow are in university today because that is the route to upward mobility. It does not ensure professional or political success - you still have to work - but it is the first step on that path.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Well, being educated has nothing to do with attending college. Having a specialized skill in a particular field might, but that's mainly because college destroyed in many ways the original system of apprenticeship. A good thing in some fields, probably a bad one in others.

That's the only real reason I wrote any of that. Being an educated person has nothing to do with attending college. Nothing. Being a leader doesn't, either. You follow in college. You learn from other people. You don't lead. You lead when you earn the respect of your peers and fellow workers, friends, associates. Having a piece of paper might confer some kind of false respect for some people, but I think that's more a result of a flawed value system and the continued propagandizing with regards to how absolutely "important" college is in the future economy...and once that's been repeated enough, it becomes a fact...even if it's not true in all cases, or even most cases.

If we really needed specialized labor to fuel our economy, if we were in a situation where our system could not continue without it, the requisite education would be paid for by those who require it. It wouldn't require any risk on the part of the individual. Therefore, it's my opinion that education currently...for most majors...is simply consumerism at best.

But, then again, what do I know...I don't have a bachelors degree.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I'll add that, it's an honest point...I don't even have a B.A. So, is there a point where I should just tell myself to stop thinking or talking or theorizing? Should I just consider that, because I don't have the piece of paper...because I didn't spend two or four more years in a university paying more than I can earn in a year around here per year...should I just give up on trying to educate or be educated? Is it futile because "I'm never going to use it"? Is it pointless because, "I don't have the credentials to use it"?

[noximist.livejournal.com]

I'd say that being educated has a lot to do with attending college, actually. Not everything, of course - I know plenty of intelligent people who have taught themselves what they know outside of a formal environment, and essentially everyone I know who has been to university has continued developing themselves after graduating - but it's a major factor.

A structured academic programme forces you to learn many facets of a given subject in progressively greater depth, including many important sub-topics you would not necessarily choose to study on your own. It also provides standards of achievement; it's easy to read a Wikipedia page and think that you've absorbed its contents, but having to prove that you understood the material pushes you that much further. If you choose a good school, you may be learning these things from some of the world's foremost authorities of the subject, people who are on the cutting edge of research. (Full disclosure: I'm especially fixated on that idea today because one of my CS profs just won a major prize for his AI research.) It is hard to reproduce that experience at home.

You seem to have missed the point of what I was saying about correlation vs. causation, because I never said that university teaches a person to lead. (I don't necessarily think that it can't, though - many people get their start in politics and outreach by participating in campus organizations.) Your original argument was that the quote about future leaders being found in colleges was propaganda, and I continue to disagree. College will not make a person a leader, but essentially all modern leaders have been to college. Therefore, looking for those who will become important in that sphere makes sense.

"If we really needed specialized labor to fuel our economy, if we were in a situation where our system could not continue without it, the requisite education would be paid for by those who require it." Can you cite a source for this? If enough people are getting the requisite education and graduating into the labour pool, then there is no reason why companies would cover the cost. There are obviously many unskilled labour jobs on the market, although the loss of most heavy industry to Asia means that the number has dwindled significantly in recent decades. Does someone need a BA to be a secretary? Nope, I wouldn't say so. I do think that it's ridiculous to require degrees for most low-level white collar jobs, but it's unlikely that those requirements are going to disappear any time soon. The bachelor's is the new high school diploma, after all.

I feel like you equate "college" with "Bachelor of Arts," and that's unfairly limiting. There are degrees which are essentially four-year vacations, but they're not the ones that are attracting the top talent. Business, Economics, Computer Science, Statistics, Actuarial Science, Math, Pre-med/Biology, Law, about twenty different branches of Engineering, and maybe even my beloved corner case, English, all provide specific skills which lead graduates to better jobs. If you can't list the skills associated with a given degree, then it's something you study for the joy of it, which does make it more of a consumer product than anything else. However, that isn't true for a lot of the disciplines offered at the post-secondary level.

[noximist.livejournal.com]

Why would you draw that conclusion based on what I said? I in no way suggested that you should stop thinking or talking or theorizing, nor would I. You can do whatever you want, and it's only futile if you're not getting anything out of it. I just have a hard time listening to your anti-education screeds, because they seem to be based more on frustration than any actual facts.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

If I've no interest in those fields - and I haven't the slightest bit - then why should I be considered uneducated when I won't spend the money to obtain a consumer degree in a field I /am/ interested in?

Not everyone wants to be a part of of those fields. In fact, even what you mentioned is still only a very, very small cog in the machine that is our human world, and I'm sure you know that. It is troubling to see you associating the adjective "educated" with college attendance and graduation, but like I said...this has become the common stance for people, and it is not necessarily because there is any truth to it. I think a lot of people would do well to attend college...they may need the structured environment to actually push themselves to become what the world might deem "intelligent" and "cultured." I'm not quite sure I'm one of them. I wouldn't scoff at the opportunity to attend, but as of yet, there hasn't been a single institution offering me a deal that I would deem fair and reasonable. As long as that continues, I won't waste my time on a system that expects me to carry the whole of the burden.

Explain to me this. I have been a top 5% performer academically my entire life. Even if I return to college today, and the ideal situation arises - i.e. that I only need to attend for two more years to receive my bachelors degree - I will graduate with more debt than the average. Can you explain to me how this is possible in a system that claims to reward the best achievers? As long as that sort of bullshit continues, there's no reason to believe that college has anything to offer me /at value/ whatsoever. If it's willing to fund more fully those who perform less well than myself...it's not doing the job it says it tries to do, and as long as there is one lie, there are likely others as well. College is a product and service...it created jobs where there once were none, it creates profit for itself by literally being paid for by money that has yet to be earned.

The elite classes...the ones who have ludicrous amounts of money in savings and security deposit, and invested...are the only reason that the current system functions as it does - because without them there would /be/ no money to loan out to people like me. Nor money to loan out to people who need cars, or houses, who otherwise couldn't afford these things without not spending a penny for a year or two, or ten, or twenty. It is a class war because the college system assists the elite class in profiting without contributing to society, unless of course you count giving the opportunity to pay back your debts in full plus interest a contribution.

You are right, though - there's enough fools in the world to fuel the college industry, so why bother fixing what isn't broken...yet. And by no means am I calling you a fool...but I would be one for going back and graduating with greater than average debt, even though I am a top performer.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

Like college, the futility won't be recognized - if at all - until long after attending. Thinking, talking, studying and theorizing I expect will appear rather futile at my young age of twenty-three...but I am no far-seer, and I wouldn't dare give up what I love because it is futile at the present moment.

It takes many years to master an instrument, and if I am not a master now, that does not mean I will not be one in ten or twenty, or thirty. And there's no reason for me to believe that two more years of college will somehow magically make me that much more educated or talented than if I spent two years studying an equivalent amount of material, or more. In fact, part of the reason I begin to hold the opinions that I do with regards to college is because I recognize the inherent insanity of entertaining the notion that four years of anything could conceivably grant a person mastery, or even partial mastery, of a subject. I don't believe I know less, or am less articulate, than any person who holds a Bachelors degree. And yet, I do not myself have one. The only difference between myself and that person, then, is that I don't have credentials easily proving that I put the time in...and that I don't have anywhere near the same amount of debt to pay off. And wage slavery is not on the top of my list of things I'd like to experience.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

And I am sorry, Noxi. I know you don't like it. I know you expect me to feel the way you do about college, and I don't really blame you. But the opportunity hasn't been there, and I can't weigh risks with benefits when the only thing I've ever known is the working class. I can't justify spending a third of what my father makes, for instance, after 30+ years at a company, on a year of education...when all of the books I really want to study, I have on a 16gb zip drive. I did enjoy my time in college, I think that if it were more affordable there would be no question. But I think my life path is probably elsewhere. If I am lucky, someday I'll get the kind of aid necessary to pursue further formal education. If I'm not, I'll make due with the resources available to me for free...which are great and far reaching.

[noximist.livejournal.com]

The University of Pennsylvania's website says that it covers 100% of accepted students' financial need; Carnegie Mellon has huge grants and scholarships (and a mysterious Army-related thing that pays students' full tuition in exchange for service); West Chester University of Pennsylvania costs $7500 per year, which is a fair bit less than I'm paying. (I mention this because the amount I earn during the summers comes pretty close to covering my tuition.) I could come up with more, but it's weird enough for me to spend just fifteen minutes poking around at American universities' websites. :p The point is that if you're gifted and willing to work, and if you apply for aid at a reasonable number of schools, you can study whatever you like with minimal financial risk. I assume you did this research before deciding that college is impossible for you to afford, but there do seem to more options out there than your pessimism would suggest.

I wasn't trying to say that you should study a discipline from the STEM fields, because it's obvious that you don't want to. Once again, my argument pertained to the quote you mentioned in your original post, with additional comments about skill-based disciplines added because you suggested that degrees are "consumerism at best." (Tell that to the civil engineer whose four-year degree is what taught him to build structurally sound bridges.)

Two years of university will not make you a master of anything, but that wasn't the argument. My point was that a college education is valuable because of the way it forces you to cover topics you'd likely never even hear about during independent study, and the way it requires you to prove that you've learned something while growing as a scholar. The feedback you'd receive from world-class instructors is invaluable; the criticisms my professors offered about my essays made me a much better researcher and writer, to say nothing of the depth and breadth of knowledge I've learned from my instructors in CS.

I am aware that I'm going to sound like a bitch when I say this, but based on my ten years in post-secondary settings: yes, at the moment, you probably know less and are less articulate than the top 5% of graduates at good universities, at least as far as the subject they studied is concerned. (The "top 5%" varies from school to school, mind you; I was the #1 English student at UNB, but the incredible talents of UoT's English students forced me to work much harder.) That says nothing about how smart you are, of course, nor does it mean you have to be that knowledgeable or articulate to be of great value to society.

You're obviously both intelligent and talented - I know you'd do fine in an academic environment - but in terms of the way you currently develop your ideas and put them in writing, you'd benefit from more study of formal (predicate) logic. It's hard to see where your own blind spots are, and that's why it's dangerous to study things on a completely independent basis. You can always do -more- than what is required of you, but most people don't reach their full potential when there are no requirements at all. Does that mean you have to go to college to educate yourself? No, it doesn't. I'm proud of you for doing your own work, because that's a noble thing to do. However, do I think that your current method of learning is equivalent to the pursuit of a degree? No, I don't...

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I don't think you sound like a bitch. I wouldn't ever claim that I know as much (or more) as a particular major knows in their specialized field upon graduation. In another five years, I probably could make that claim, regardless of whether or not I return to college - at least in the discipline of philosophy. As for articulation, yes, in writing I may not be at that top level compared to Bachelor holders in English. In speech, it is a different story, but you are not really familiar with my speech. Speech is a wholly different creature, anyway. My writing has never been top notch (although there never were many complaints except by certain literature professors, but I am not a literature major, and I never had less than an A on a paper in any case.)

College education is valuable. But because it is a commodity that has a cost, and generally isn't easily paid for at the same time it is consumed, it's necessary to do cost/benefit analysis. I will be starting at the refinery shortly, I am almost 100% certain - if I stay for five years, I'll be making $52,000/y. So this produces a bit of a conundrum, considering much of what I want in life can be obtained in an incredibly short time at that wage rate.

There's no need to stroke my ego. I may be more intelligent than some, more talented than some, but it's a broad spectrum. I am mostly angry because there are people with far less academic performance receiving far more aid than I ever did, or will be given (as far as I can tell so far)...even in similar disciplines (humanities/liberal arts.) I simply don't understand that. It's both infuriating and it hurts my self esteem, because it makes me think I lacked something essential...when by all appearances, I didn't.

Unfortunately though, there's no money for me to go applying to ten or fifteen different colleges - to shop around, as it were. Not yet. But by the time I have that money to spend, many of the cutoff dates will be long over, and I'll be waiting until next year. Maybe that's the best thing that can happen right now. But it should be noted that I am very skeptical about spending $100 per application to ten or fifteen colleges. That is a -lot- of money, and it's not really fair to the working class to expect them to pay it. My experience with admissions departments has also left a sour taste in my mouth because many of them weren't willing to waive that fee.

I know I need to study formal logic. If you come across any philosophy professors who have an idea of a few books to grab, that are either used in college classrooms or replicate it, by all means, let me know. Or I'll look into it myself, when I get my life straightened out.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

And by the way, your input is always appreciated, even if I come off as harsh or uncaring. The fact is, I really enjoy having discussions and debates with people (you especially), and your thoughts most definitely influence my own. You help counter the severity and hardness that I've come to develop over the years. That's something a lot of people can't really achieve with me.

I always did have a soft spot for you. I wish that my life had worked out differently, so I was more on your level. But they didn't...for a number of reasons. Including getting myself tangled up in emotions and relationships that I never should have.

Don't ever think you aren't welcome to speak your mind here. I'd rather surround myself with people who disagree than yes men. It's one of the few ways a person evolves.