Education Part 2

I never had any intention of going to university. After all, I had been a student who did poorly from a very young age on. I was granted a high school diploma, but I didn't earn it nor did I deserve it. So, why go to college at all?

For me, there was a very unique set of circumstances that led me to enroll in college classes. These circumstances were both historically and personally motivated. First, when I enrolled in college, there were not a great many opportunities allowed me. In fact, there weren't many opportunities for most people my age. At the time when we were either entering college or the workforce, we were few and the older generation, the baby boomers, were many. At this time, the vast baby boomer generation was still in full swing, they were at the peak of their working careers. There were also major labor cuts and an explosion in automation that made jobs even fewer. Fortunately, college was still affordable at this time. I feel like a great many of my generation went off to college or to other countries or to alternative lifestyles because we could.

Second and more personally, I enrolled in college because all of my friends were there. I decided to go down to the local college, take the test and enroll. I did this only because everyone I knew was doing it, and I did not want to be the odd man out.

It's funny, I feel like college was for me what high school should have been. I was prescribed a number of courses that everyone had to take. It was the first few years when I learned the most, and oftentimes these were subjects that I had had no inclination to take. The study of economics, for instance, impressed me the most.

We were not required to pick a major until fairly late on in the experience. I am grateful for that now as I was grateful then. It gave all of us time to think about things and make a decision on a final course of study after we had spent a little time getting to understand how the system works, and how we worked inside of the system.

There were those sorts of students then like there are now who pick a major course of study before the first day of classes. There is nothing wrong with this approach unless there comes other interests later on that either must go unfulfilled or seen as a nuance.

There are the students who only see college as a way to get to the next phase of life. They are the students who work diligently during the rush in order to get out with a degree and a job prospect. There are those people in all stages of life that are only doing what they do because of the next thing. I fear for them only because they are always elsewhere and not enjoying the process of now. Seeing college as a step in the greater portion of life, I believe is erroneous.

In the four years of college life, I suspect that most students learn just as much in the classroom as outside of it. There are those life lessons, and those relationships and those victories and hardships that every college student should have. These things are perhaps age centered. Learning to live life while growing the mind is a wonderful prospect. After all, people who work for years and then go back to college have very different sensibilities. These people generally do have an end goal in mind, and they have learned to function in life and know what it takes to get to goals.

There are a few things to consider, especially now. There are many more people today than there was in my younger days. College tuition is exponentially higher now than it was even just a few years ago. With soaring costs of college and the exorbitant cost of living, it begs a number of questions. First, with the high cost, why would anyone want to meander through college without a plan just to find a little enlightenment? Or worse, why go to college at all? And second, why bother to spend the time when way too often the jobs available either do not require a college degree or don't reward it?

Anything we get, a home a job, a town, a country, money, family, material goods can be lost, taken or otherwise removed from us. All of things are not permanent, and they can't be. Whatever we put into our minds, will always belong to us. Your education as much as a lack thereof will never be taken.

I think the price of not pursuing formal education is considerably higher than the cost of going. It's not just the piece of paper. It's not just the in theory qualifications that go along with a college degree. It's more than all of that. It's the time spent as a young person, the halcyon days of youth and the growth that happens intellectually as well as emotionally. It's not the end all goal of a degree, rather, but the process in which it takes to get there.

Post graduate degrees, professional degrees and vocational certificates? These are for the people who have the end goals in mind, the specific jobs and careers which need formal education. There is always time for these.