Last week, a man on the T was spouting off his opinion on "higher education." I initially agreed with his first comment: "Wouldn't Boston be nicer without the students?" Well, now that the students have returned to quite selfishly crowd the doors of the subway, yell outside my window all night, and cause certain sidewalks and subways stops to smell like vomit, I can agree that Boston is nicer without the students.
Then he decided to accuse the entire establishment of being a sham. "Do you know what professors are? They're people who have failed at life," he said. First of all, not all professors are life-long academics. Most if not all of them have done work outside of academia in many different countries and return to relay some of the knowledge they've gathered to share with the rest of us. Gracious of them really, as I'm sure some take pay cuts and make other concessions to do it. Mind you, he appeared to be addressing me (I have a hard time pretending not to hear), but there were several other people standing near me who appeared to be offended and perplexed by his comments.
As much as I might disagree with him, being a grad of this sham of an establishment, it does bring up the touchy issue of what a degree is worth. Is it just yet another sign of class used to separate the haves from the have-nots? Is it a four-year vacation for kids with no drive to do anything for themselves? How did an Anthropology degree prepare me for a job managing databases? How did I manage to spend four years in college and never take math? How do I have a job that is so potentially math-oriented without ever having taken math? Oh math.
Oh yeah, the guy on the train: he also brought up the propoganda issue. Yes, it is probably partially propoganda, but so is advertising by McDonald's. College provides a brand of propganda that encourages you to think for yourself--to reason. I have a hard time believing that the system is so tight and focused that it is driving us all in one direction. So I won't. Corporations like McD and Wal-Mart might be a little closer (or the Massachusetts Lottery which just told me, "Even if you don't win, you win. We all win.") to that level of organization. I think it's much better to be indoctrinated by a fight song and a feminist history teacher than an obesity-causing, human rights abusing, corporate America.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Education
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2 comments:
The touchy issue of what a degree is worth.
If we tweak the question just a little bit, to what you may really have meant in the first place, it becomes a question of what a college education is worth.
The college education is more than the degree, and the point of that education is more than to be more employable. It's also to make one more well rounded and "cosmopolitan." A higher number of well rounded (but you can still be "edgy") people leaves less room for so many square, jagged and dangerous ones.
"Is it just yet another sign of class used to separate the haves from the have-nots?" Well, Alberto Gonzales, no matter how much I disagree with him, is college educated and started as a "have not." Steve Jobs and Steven Speilberg, for two others whose work I have not always enjoyed, were "haves" before they each decided to finish their college educations. Many "have-nots" obtain college educations (and degrees) and use them to serve the communities from which they came, remaining relatively obscure "have-nots." In other words, Grasshopper, "no."
"Is it a four-year vacation for kids with no drive to do anything for themselves?" Maybe for some. Certainly wasn't for you. And by the way, there are plenty of uneducated "kids with no drive to do anything for themselves" who are on extended "vacations" and are dangerous either because they are desperate with no real hope of changing anything for themselves or because they are "trustafarians" who "are born on third base and think they hit triples."
"How did an Anthropology degree prepare me for a job managing databases?" You are kidding, right? Isn't the data in the databases derivative of human behavior? And don't you manage them to facilitate their use by people who "study" human behavior? Isn't that what anthropology, in the end, is about? Please ask harder questions.
"How did I manage to spend four years in college and never take math? How do I have a job that is so potentially math-oriented without ever having taken math?" There are more ways to address problems than the "math" way. AND on the other hand, "math" is bigger than numbers and linear formulas. Maybe you just didn't need the "math" that colleges offer to get to the level that can actually be useful.
And now for the latest music recommendation:
Ry Cooder: Chavez Ravine.
I've been listening to Mr. Cooder's Chavez Ravine since I (first) heard in on NPR last month sometime, I think. Pretty good stuff. I like that it tells a story. I heard it on some talk-ish show before hearing in on Nic Harcourt's. Pretty impressive, really. (Or maybe I just don't listen to enough KCRW. That will change when I get my iPod back and I podcast my way through work with Nic.)
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