Get Smart

Get Smart

If there’s one thing I hope we can all agree on , it’s the fact that education is one of the most important factors in our lives today. We are pursuing higher education not just for the satisfaction of attaining knowledge and skills, but also as a way to make ourselves more marketable to the global economy. While more and more people are flocking to colleges across the U.S., the value of a college degree is in some way becoming cheapened. The high school diploma of 50 years ago is now the equivalent of a college degree, which in my mind is disheartening to hear. While I think that more people going on to higher education is an overall positive, I don’t necessarily think that it is right for everyone, myself included. Today what most people associate with college are fantasies of epic parties and raucous underage drinking, a social playing field with the occasional class thrown in. I think that most colleges serve to provide students with an extra four years of socialization into the “real world” with a smaller emphasis on attaining actual knowledge over the end product of a physical degree. I believe college to be beneficial, but I think that it doesn’t necessarily prepare us for the real world, or how things will be once we are out of the protection of the education system. In a way our education system is closely mirroring our cultures consumerism, higher education becomes a product for us to use to gain employment, which hopefully leads to money and success. Many people fall into the American equation in which success = happiness. While in many cases this can be true for awhile, there is a reason the definition for success is not happiness and vice versa. 

In an article published by the Washington Post based upon the findings of Jaison Abel and Richard Dietz of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, its estimated that only “27 percent of college graduates go on to work a job closely related to their major.” This statistic totally goes against the social mindset in place in the U.S. thats based around our interpretation of failure. We often assume that if someone doesn’t land a job in their field and gives up to move onto something else that they have failed and are labeled quitters. This can in fact be true, but the social stigma around this often diverts people from moving onto something that they are better suited for. This stigma can’t be chalked up tp the education system, but I think one overriding principle that could be stressed in education at a college level could be flexibility. Oftentimes not getting what you think you wanted or needed can be the best thing for you in the long run. Just as the Rolling Stones sang, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you get what you need.” 

In my critique of the education system today, I often find myself swamped in the negative aspects I see instead of being thankful for all the opportunities I have already received. If there was one thing I wished was stressed more in college it would be the idea of pursing happiness not in necessarily achieving our goals and aspirations of success but rather to enjoy the ride that we are on.

Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/20/only-27-percent-of-college-grads-have-a-job-related-to-their-major/

http://www.greaterexpectations.org/report/1b.html