I am blessed because my parents paid for it, my family helped me get a job after graduating (which I would not have been able to do given how the labor marketwas in 2008 and still is as of mid 2009). As result, I have no financial regrets about it, if you had to get student loans, I can see why many are upset withcollege, before the recession even. Even in more robust job markets, many graduates fell like they are just like day laborers in terms pay, respect and jobsecurity with the difference being that the day laborer at the corner do not have to wear ties to answer phones and make $10 per hour. College is getting moreand more expensive because more people are going but because more people are going, the value of degrees diminish and so the return falls while costs fallmaking a degree less and less financially helpful. Fro ma financial standpoint college is less profitable if you look at it like business venture or it isbecoming an over valued asset if you think of your degree as an investment/asset.
Non-pecuniary considerations aside, college was great. There were parties, even though I did not go to a party school, I had chances to let loose and indulgeby desire for drink, drugs and sex. Parties were great at either commiserating failures or celebrating accomplishments. Although parties were needed, life isnot like most movies about college and much of the social experience about college is not lived through parties but rather through daily interactions. It isalmost impossible to not make friends and unlike k-12 most of those friendships are between more like minded people and which so many potential friends tochoose, one usually ends up with someone with the same personality and/or personality traits that play as foil in a succesful friendship. I
n college most peoepl abandon many of the rational attitudes and slavish devotion to cliques and superficial labels. Yet we ar estill young enough to not becurmudgeons set in our ways. Parties are fun but the majority of what the college social experience social is the friends and the faact that friend of frinedcan become your best buddy within weeks or that your friends come fro mmroe diverse bak grounds than the friend you met in k-12. College is a socialenvironment that cannot be duplicated and it is lived at time in one life that is perfectly suited for conviviality.
There is also the academic aspect of it. As great as the parties and the friendships are, anyone who says that college is only useful for the socialexperiences either watches too many movies about college or went to college and just was not very bright or had any modicum of intellectual inclination.Consider how much time and money it takes to finish college I expected to be shown new ideas, learn how to research well, how to organize information inone's mind, draw conclusions, defend them in writing or or in debates. One should learn how to have discussion and know when the goal is to refute andprove your point and in other instances the discussion is not about anyone winning or losing but opposing ideas being contrasted and both parties gaining andlearning from the experience. You should get to learn your historical and literary and cultural history and how the world came to be how it is. All of thisshould be done in general education.
After that, the major should be enjoyed, spending two or three years focusing on the rudiments of an academic disciplines should be fun. Challenging yes, butalso enjoyable. I loved double majoring. History was fun because there were so many options for classes in that large department. Economics was smaller and hadless choices of classes but ts small size was helpful because by senior years I had many of the professors for a second time, I knew all of my classmates andthat sense of common purpose and mutual desire to better understand something that was shared by fellow seniors is something I really do miss.
I also loved talking to my professor when I was an upper class man. I had learned enough economics to know how little I knew relative to how much knowledgeexists, discovered and yet to be discovered. Except for the beginning and ending of the semester when students are begging to add and where students beggingfor extensions on papers and passing gardes, respectively, office hours should be enjoyed. If you like you majors, it is very enjoyable to get to talk one onone with someone who is master of this portion of mankind's knowledge. I am used to doing most of the talking and having the answers but when I went intooffice hours, I was quite, humble and listened to their every word because they are the master and us undergrad the apprentices. I hoped t further understandmy particular focus of study and having a few length discussions with your professors will put you far ahead of your peers. When they know that you have theinterest, they will tell you things that they generally do not say to undergrads and it is just a wonderful feeling to know that while my knowledge of thesubject is still no where near that of my teachers', it is far beyond almost every else's.
Business is messy, shallow, ignoble and scholarship is not.
I think it is pretty obvious that I will not be able to stay away from college and put off graduate school for all that long. In two or three years I hope tobe back and this time to get the type of advanced degrees that people take seriously.
Good luck to all current or soon to be undergrads, enjoy the experience in its totality. Go to parties, meet girls, make friends, go on a few road trips, ifyour school has any stupid tradition like jumping in a lake or fountain go through with it. Go to your classes and be up on the material so when the weathergets nice and you just have to skip class, you can do it without it being the nail in your academic coffin. Talk to your professors. Stay in shape and playintramurals so you can be healthy and have the energy to handle the two weeks of hard work per semester. Avoid all nighters, they will probably be neccesitydue to either a large course load or more likley procrastination but do not plan on all nighters, especially if you are a freshman, who wants to feel like theyare officially in college by doing that.
You have no obligation to play frisbee. (no elaboration needed here)
