The Reality of College

Originally posted by prestonposthuma


I have been to every class thus far, I have done every assignment, and have been doing readings. I'm not a lazy shmuck if that's what you were implicating.

I'm not implying that you're lazy, but I am suggesting that your priorities might be wrong.

I was my experience that school was as interesting as I made it. I'm not saying that I was wild about every class I took or that I did well in every class I took, but overall, when I went the extra mile, I was rewarded with good grades and a sense of gratification for my accomplishments.

Another tack is to use your electives to spice up your curriculum with courses that are interesting and broaden your appreciation of culture and to earn a minor in a field that you find fascinating or that might complement your major.

No matter where life takes you, I don't believe that you will ever regret getting a good education and the time and effort will pay off in a much richer and more fulfilling life.

College has never been more important in our nation’s history than it is today, but I certainly do not mean this statement as a compliment to the Ivory Tower. Our exhausted, repressive, imploding socio-economic system increasingly uses the credentialization process orchestrated by academe to guarantee that the sheeple whom it hires are docile, subservient and predictable. This socio-economic system is going to pass away anyway in another ten to fifteen years, and even before it does, credentialization, except in a few specialized disciplines, will cease to be an entrée to paying employment within this system. The entire system is going to implode in its decrepit rottenness, and the Ivory Tower, as the gatekeeper for such a decrepit and rotten system, will go down with it. Indeed, for those who know where and how to look, it is already starting to do so.

Even worse, college (which I have already classified as “a place to get credentialized”) is most assuredly not a place nowadays to “find yourself” or to learn for the sake of learning. On both counts, you are on your own here. The humanities in the Ivory Tower have been devastated by a quarter century place of post-modern deconstructionism, and the sciences have been corrupted by governmental control and corporate bribes. In such a world, just years away from total implosion, you are --- you must be --- your own teacher and your own guide to self-knowledge.

Unfortunately, for all their faults, colleges --- or, more particularly, college towns --- are becoming the only refuges of culture (however limited, superficial and artificial) in a global society that is increasingly, shamelessly and unapologetically barbaric. That didn’t use to be the case, but it is increasingly the case now. But even in its dotage, the Ivory Tower still has a few students who want to learn, a few students who want to teach, and a few subjects which are worthy to learn.

By and large, however, institutional education is not a wise investment. Yes, the big bucks are for those with the sheepskins, but the even bigger bucks, in the longer run, are for those who have a vision, who test it against reality, and who hold onto it to the end. Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard in his second year, is a perfect case in point.

reply to post by prestonposthuma

Another HUGE point is why take the range of classes that are required? If you are majoring in computer engineering, you're required to take an english composition course. What true use is that?

I hesitate to get into all of your points, because without knowing you or your faculty, it would be unfair for me to comment.
However, as someone who spent over 30 years in industry in the computer and business arena, before finishing my career in academia, I can tell you that the English composition course that you question is absolutely essential in the computer engineering field.
As a computer engineer, you will be writing reports to management, users, and ancillary departments. Those documents must be written concisely and clearly. There is nothing worse than an engineering document written with grammatical or spelling errors. In addition, if your conclusions and thoughts are not well presented, you will not have your job very long. You may not like taking the course, but I can assure you that you will need that course.
As to the other points, you need to take charge of your education. That is especially true in a large university, where it is easy to "get lost" in the numbers. Ask other students who the good professors are, check out websites such as ratemyprofessors.com .
Finally, if you still feel that you're not getting what you need, consider transferring to a smaller college. The student-professor ratios are usually much more favorable, and unlike large universities, you will find that the professors are more class-oriented, as opposed to research-oriented at large universities.

I currently attend Columbia College which happens to be an all woman's college. If I were paying full tuition I would be paying 22,000 plus to be brainwashed in thinking men keep women down. I'm honesty surprised they allow men to teach at that school. College is the same as high school, middle school, and elementary school with few exceptions. I learn a bunch of stuff that I don't want to and will not apply to my career. The only difference is this time I have to pay for it. Ouch.
The only reason I agreed to go to a private school, primarily a private all woman's school was because I got a bunch of scholarships that made it cheaper for me to attend there compared to our local university, USC. Not to mention, our school has the best elementary education department in the Southeast.
So anyway, being as it is all women, I go to school where I am taught by countless women that consistency shove feminism down my throat all day. I'm in my second English class and we have only read material about independent women and how they were kept down. As an example, I am currently forced into writing an essay on Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Not only that, we are required to take two classes called LA 101 and LA 102 (I have completely forgotten what the acronym stands for, I don't think its Liberal Arts.) I took the first class where we were taught about other women that were suppressed by men. It gets really old after a while.
It's kind of like going to school at the opposite of the "He Man Woman Hater's Club".
It's also a Liberal Arts College which means during the campaign we were bombarded to vote for Obama.

i WAS ALSO A COLLEGE STUDENT... I got to pursue Art and ended up doing public sculpture work... Some not even Leonardo or Michaelagello did. At the same time went and won me a World Cup Paintball trophy. My college experience was a little diff. I had the ultimate diferent than most others classes. I had ultimate form kindergarden.... we had scribble time, paint time, snack time, compuer time and play-doh time! The only thing we never had was knap time!

My first day of college was 9/11/01! What and education I got! But from the very first day it was the same as high school or middle school. You'd think in a place of higher learning their would be people of a mature and intelligent nature. I can honestly say I was wong. I instantly knew the feeling when "Butterfly" rolls when Kevin is sitting outside a "college" party in the movie ORANGE COUNTY. The first few days the "professors" were tickled pink and would regularly call on me for answers. But the kinda answers nobody wants to hear/know the ahrd truth... even if i meant me... the hard corps truth. And becasue you are a trully intelligent person, instead of playing at one.... the temperature goes up in the room and people shoot looks at you as freezing A$$ as a Notrh Dakota winter (-45 easy). For example, during a horrid speach class... the teacher played a recorded press coverage of president Bush Jr.s swearing in and acceptence speech. At the end of class the Prof. asked what we had seen wrong with the oath and following speech. I raised my hand. I noted at the part where he swore to protect and uphold the constitution, at the same time in the crowd of people a man was being led away from simply holding up an anti-Bush sign. He asked why this was what I saw wrong... I said " There are some people who should know better; there are people probably saying thats UNAMERICAN to hold a sign like that at the president! They may be right from their point of view. But if you dont know your rights you dont have any." They soon learned to stop calling on me.

The scary part is how politics in the school is literally very close to the real thing. The missing money or funds "mis-managed" the election process and the effect on student life. Either absoloutly nothing or a pain in the butt change in "policy" that throws a monkey in the wrench for you making things more difficult than they should be!

College is another tool used. Neither positive or negative.

All what ya make it

I graduate in less than a month and am starting my application for my Master's now. The way I see it you get out what you put in if you are willing to put in. I won't deny that gen ed courses suck but once I was done with those my degree couldn't be more fun

-Kyo

I feel lucky in that most of my profs in university were those who thought outside the box. They challenged issues that we think of as 'normal'. Anthropologists who make us re-think taboos and history teachers who give us text books written un-biased views or that of the losing party to give us a different perspective, we just have so many good teachers here that bring us outside of what we are used to studying. There are stil some profs that think in bias terms, they don't challenge our views and think they are all that..but for the most part I love my education. I at first went to a community college where the students were extremely immature and I couldn't stand it-though I toughed it out and got through lol. So I know many schools are just blah.

[edit on 18-11-2009 by Zerra]

a reply to: prestonposthuma

Well it's been 8 years. If you still get on here how have your thoughts and feelings changed?

I have talked to quite a few college graduates who said basically the same things you said in the OP, that if they could have just studied what they needed for their major they could have graduated in probably a little over a year.

I don't normally post in thread bumps like this but I'll leave this here for anyone that reads it. You get out of college what you put into it, you're meant to be there and learn. Learn about things, learn how to do things, learn skills. Some of those skills your professors will teach you and others they won't for various reasons.

If you've figured out your field then you should spend ALL of your excess time working on it. I want to be a game developer, and not one of the bad ones. I triple majored in a community college for that, I earned a computer science degree, and now I'm trying to get a simulation/game engineering degree. I spend my time in class, I spend 40 hours a week on homework making sure it's all perfect, and then in my spare time I use Maya, Unity, and Unreal, to make my own projects.... plus devote some time every now and then to learning new programming languages.

You'll get out of your time spent learning what you put into it. You don't want to be one of those people that skates through and doesn't really learn anything of value. How will you ever get a good job if you can't perform?

Here I am too...5 years later

BA in Psychology and an MA in Clinical Psychology

Now on a track for an MBA in Health Management at a major university...loving every minute and I repeat what I said before...it's about what you put in