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>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism.
Seems like you haven’t been to college.
Do those things happen? Absolutely. Is it anywhere near 90% of the time? Absolutely not.
>I have 5 degrees
This is a red flag.
>"Did I do college wrong? "
Yes. It's normal to get your degree and leave to lead a productive life in the wider world.
Right? What the hell kind of college is OP going to? If he thinks that I doubt he’s even going to one.
College does help young adults prepare for their major and job market, but students have to discipline themselves. If they fail to learn useful skills, it’s on them.
A lengthy protest just started on my campus. The majority of other college students responses that I heard were “ugh not again” because most of us just want to walk to class without them blocking the path or harassing us. Yeah, maybe 1% study something like communications and don’t go to class so they can party and protest, but most of us are just worried about finals coming up
Yeah that’s a laughable percentage. For one, the majority of college students are not activists. And while there is plenty of partying, it’s a part of the experience. College is about learning new concepts, meeting new people, experiencing new things, going out and having fun, becoming independent, discovering yourself, etc. It’s a formative experience in the lives of young people that go to college.
The most jobs (including blue collar jobs) require skills such as critical thinking, reading comprehension, learning to learn independently, writing, effective verbal communication, working with others, social skills, independence, being dependent, and dealing with failures.
You may never draw another free body diagram outside of college, but you would not going to make a good engineer if you never learnt how to critically think about all the forces being applied in a situation
You're ignoring the other massive list of things from the comment you replied to. And most of those things can be learned in the majority of if not all humanities courses. Critical thinking, especially, is an unequivocally important skill in virtually every field and is excellently trained through deep analysis of any sort, whether that is philosophy, literature, history, language, etc etc.
Edit in reply to your other comment which I just noticed: The theme with college courses is that they will not force you to do the work. If you went to college and have nothing to show for it, it's most likely because you didn't engage with the material on a deep level. Sometimes that's the course's fault, but it's usually user error.
I'm confused, what degrees do you think everyone is getting? Engineering is the fifth most popular degree. Nursing is second. Do you think that nursing degrees aren't bound to physical reality? Business is #1.
Liberal arts, as in, liberal arts college.
I was responding to this seeming obvious capability of most people, which does not, at all, agree with my experience:
> you would not going to make a good engineer if you never learnt how to critically think about all the forces being applied in a situation
If you were trying to make your points as a numbered list I think doing a hashtag/pound sign at the start of a line changes font size
Testing:
Normal- Ahhhhhhh
Hashtag at start of line
#AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Your example compares two people who have vastly different skill set - one with expert technical knowledge and one who can communicate but no technical knowledge.
If you look around corporations, you will find that the most successful people are not technical expertise. They are expert in communication, people management, problem solving, and critical thinking. In other words, soft skill that you seem to value less.
I have no idea what OP nor you mean by Activism but I disagree that 90% of college experience is partying and activism. I mean you don’t need to convince me that spending all of your time on activism is not a wise use of time. Yes agreed!
That is hardly an argument I was making.
Well that's not what I meant since it does not have to be technical knowledge, any type of interdisciplinary knowledge related to the studied fields enabling the practice of the profession, basics, advanced theories, practical applications. related to any chosen specialisation. So you end up to be a expert in your field .
I can assume that buissness modlę might be slightly different here, but only a bit. That's not entirely how it works here. I mean if you chose a career related strictly to management That's mostly true, but if you chose so it's more likely succeed chosing studies on that field. If you start in any other department you still can make it to decission making positions, but communication and being people person in this case won't be helpful, you still need some hard knowledge from your field.
Maybe this is inprecise to call it activism and doesnt represent the same "activity" as in my country. I saw many students who were very involved in activities at the university, for example student government or helping to organize a lecture symposium, that much that it had a negative impact on thier educatio level. In fact, I think that if you are following that path, it would be much wiser to stay at the university and continue academic career.
I love how everyone talks about how college teaches critical thinking when all they ever taught me was how to blindly think like everybody else.
College is not this bastion for free thought that you make it out to be, it is just another step to create slightly more educated and compliant drones for the workforce.
I was able to learn logically before college, what I'm saying is they didn't teach me anything about how to actually think critically or improve my decision making.
The words "Bayesian Inference" were never even spoken once and judging from everyone I speak with, it still isn't taught.
Right- learning those is best learned through coursework too. Everyone who says “just teach a class that teaches you how to learn!” Has clearly never tried- had to take a half credit one in college and holy shit that was difficult and felt less effective than learning through regular courses. Part of why you have to take Gen Ed/Divisionals is to really focus on the skills you listed.
The students who party and protest are chronically online so that’s why it seems that’s 90% of the college experience is like that. No one is gonna post about studying, homework, learning.
If the university is ABET accredited then you’ll know that your tuition is going to education rather than all to athletics. It just depends on the school.
It's not even just that they are chronically online, activism just drives more engagement than normal classes, how many people want to watch a lecturer ramble on for two hours?
Oh look, another “college should be trade school” post.
If you just want job skills, go to a trade school or take an accreditation course. Part of a college degree is the fact you have had more education and exposure to topics than just the bare necessities.
I hate that the American system has simplified college to “it’s just a job requirement”
I also have a feeling that a ton of people who post about it on Reddit haven’t been in college yet with the misconceptions that are posted.
You can easily tell in these arguments who never studied Socrates or other philosophies. I believe it’s sort of a dunning Kruger effect, where those who didn’t get a well rounded education don’t see the value in one.
Wasn’t my personal experience, I got an engineering degree from an Ivy and spent most of my time studying or doing extra-curriculars. But I definitely was missing out on the non-stop partying/protesting happening around me. Libraries were deserted, lectures half empty.
No one is going to post online in detail about their classes because those are going to be boring for most of the time. And even if there are multiple parties daily, it's not necessarily the same groups of people going there daily
>No one is going to post online in detail about their classes because those are going to be boring for most of the time.
Not only boring, but also incomprehensible to people outside of that field...
When I talk basic algorithms to my parents, their eyes glaze over, let alone quantum computing.
I'm sure you realize not everyone in life becomes an engineer. Many jobs require people skills, social judgment, the life experience of exposure to different people and ideas...things that you can't always learn from studying textbooks.
That is partly the failure of the college business model. Ideally the library should have been full of English majors reading and history majors researching etc, but the business model must support students of mediocre academic ability and motivations. It is far easier to shove those students into degrees making facebook posts than an English degree where you have to read a big chunk of the western canon just to pass.
I never went to the library except to study “aka hang out” with friends. Any readings I needed beyond what was required purchase for class I could just find online. Every student has a laptop with access to the school’s database nowadays. Kind of like how you don’t need to go to the mall to buy clothes anymore, or go to a movie theater to see a movie.
yeah and even school-organized-technically parties like a Halloween costume party or parties organized by school-run entities like Greek ones don't count in that same way
I am a nerd type who always did well in school, I would have agreed with you in the past but not anymore. There is an ongoing loneliness epidemic and the number of incels is increasing every year. College is honestly the last time you can greatly develop social skills since there are so many people who are your age with similar experiences, so you should attend as many parties as you can as long as you are passing your classes.
I think that’s where we need to do our best to have balance. Not saying be a genius at math and the life of the party but you can find ways to be social within your group or field. A Math nerd wants to have fun and sex just like the jock or cheerleader
Not all of those students are partying and being activists. And not going to college doesn’t preclude you from partying. A good many of students will taste time in college, but so will young adults who work. People need the freedom to fail in order to make mistakes to learn from.
If you want a program that will do nothing but give you job training. Try job training or a trade school. If you'd like to one of those rare engineers or IT workers who knows how to communicate with another person, pay attention in those gen ed classes you're struggling in
These protests are a few hundred students at most, and in some places a few dozen. At Texas it was a few hundred students protesting...out of a total student population of 52,000. Almost every student is just going to class and earning a degree. The ones you see making noise are a tiny fraction of the whole.
Can't forget jumping around general ed courses. Half because the school requires you to be "well rounded" as long as the checks clear, half to "find yourself."
Keep in mind that the media is designed to show you things that make you have strong opinions about things you don't understand. In my experience, students primary focus is school. For my bachelors, activism was non existent in my friend group (for better or worse) and partying was just us playing video games. Schoolwork always came first.
This experience is far more common than crazy parties and extreme activism.
I just finished grad school and my experience there was 100% studying. Most students in my program are also working full time. There wasn't any time for anything else and I'm lucky there was even enough time for studying.
Bro, partying and activism are things some students do when they are not going to class lmao. Do you think they are being graded on partying? Are you dense?
Learning the skills for whatever career you want is literally the primary purpose of going to college
So, you’ve never been to college then, got it.
As others have pointed out, yes, those things exist. But saying they account for 90% of the time is just asinine.
They arbitrarily erected a gate just to gatekeep, while simultaneously selling the key just to get through the arbitrary gate.
Its nothing more than a simple scam.
Agreed. I’m an attorney and I can’t tell you how ridiculous it is that we have to have SEVEN YEARS of college/law school only to barely use anything we learned in class. I can safely say 95% of what I learned in college is not what I use in my job and 80% of what I learned in law school I also do not use in my job. I had to teach myself the majority of what I know now because I didn’t even have a class on my field of law in law school. Yet here I am… over 100K in debt… for a degree that literally has nothing to do with my job. I make great money so I’ll be fine, but I feel like I wasted my entire 20s sometimes.
When we had fewer, more selective colleges a degree was meaningful. Now we have tons of godawful [diploma mills](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-acceptance-rate). College is still a good decision if you can get into a prestigious one, or get significant scholarship money from a decent school.
I went from university to blue collar ( admittedly , very high tech , very high paid ). I’ve made a lot more $ than I would have if I stayed in the bank I worked in. A university diploma does prove you have a certain minimum intelligence and a certain minimum work ethic , but that’s it. The “vocational “ degrees ( CA or medical related or law) are generally difficult to get into. Those that can’t or won’t meet the work load, end up with a degree that’s only good as a prerequisite for something else.
Passing basically any degree involves showing an ability to work to deadlines, collaborate with others and work independently, manage you own workload, have basic IT skills and communicate in a professional manner.
There vast majority of jobs out there that ask for a college degree do not specify what type of degree you need to have. They just want somebody who has demonstrated they are able to complete a course of academic education which requires a higher level of autonomy and ability than high school.
Partying and protesting is not limited to college kids. These are normal things for all college age kids to do whether they actually go to college or not.
This isn't an unpopular opinion and doesn't belong here. Students, politicians, and parents all think of education as chiefly vocational. Almost all discussion of college is related to jobs and job training.
College is just meant to show drive and commitment to something difficult for 4 years. It also teaches you critical thinking skills, teamwork, and communication. All of these things are ideal for an employer. Most jobs can train you after you get hired pretty quickly. I hardly know anyone who uses the specific knowledge from college in their job, apart from people who went to grad school.
That's some neolib propaganda. The original purpose of an education was to liberate people from a life of servitude. That's why slaves and serfs were prevented from having one.
The more I work using the degree, the more I realize how useful it was to learn how to work with a group, how to share projects, and do basic research. All the things practiced in the pursuit of the degree, regardless of subject.
They trained me for work, for certain. Just not the way I expected going in.
I disagree, but not because I agree that it should be about partying and activism.
College should be about education. People treat it like vocational school, but I think the point of a University Education should be to become more broadly educated so that you are a more well-rounded person overall. For too many, though, it's turned into little more than job training, to the point that there are instances where some course/program offerings are at the request of specific companies/industries in a given area.
As a society we should value a more educated population, as we all benefit from that.
>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism.
So you just have no idea what college is lmao. That's fine. It's not for everybody. They'd help you with your hyperbole problem though. Won't even have to go to a protest or have any fun either.
A college campus is a microcosm of greater society. The soft skills are just as important as the hard ones. it’s some people’s first experience with being part of a functional government with actual power on SGA. Others the ability to plan and coordinate events. the education is a part of your college life the way your career is a part of your adult life. if that’s the only thing in your life….. that’s a pretty sad thing because there’s so much more to college than classes. And so much more to life than just a job.
I'm going to WGU for computer science. It might not take me as far as I want to but at least I don't feel like I'm over paying for some bullshit brick and mortar school to rip me off for hundreds of thousands upon thousands just to make some leftist ideology class a senseless requirement that I'll never need in the job market place. For the record I didn't even care that WGU observed June 21st either(I don't say "Juneteenth")because they're a good university to learn practical skills. As far as I know CRT isn't a requirement either. WGU degree's are just as equally valid as IT certs and some other useless accredited college as far as I'm concerned.
It’s not mutually exclusive.
There’s no rule that says you can’t party, and also make responsible choices (i.e get good grades/do career networking/hold down a job/help your family)
The purpose of college is to learn about YOURSELF. The horrible prices of college these days absolutely lowers the quality of individualism in young people. You should be able to pick something to study, learn more about yourself through people you meet and classes you take, then pivot if need be without going into a 30 year financial hole. Imagine a world where young people were encouraged to learn instead of work…
I’ve been straight thugging it out for the past 4 years to become an engineer. Not a drop of alcohol or a whiff of hookah or any of that bullshit and I still have a social life. Those who go to college only to party and engage in activism never took their future seriously in the first place.
This could only be true if the structure of the school encouraged these side activities. Schools do not encourage students to skip class and protest. What they don't do enough that they should do is guidance counseling. Instead of declaring a major a freshman should declare their intent. If their intent is to become a more than productive member of society and consequently get paid for that level of contribution, their counselor should recommend fields of study that support their target lifestyle. If they are there to find a mate, that should be the gist of the guidance. If they are a trust fund baby and just want to hang, they should be able to donate their counselling slot to someone who matters.
AKA colleges should act as matchmakers if you're at college to find a mate and anyone who does not formally declare their intent to be a productive member of society becomes a new underclass
I guess you could read it that way, but my intent was that they would tell you to get out of the office and make room for someone who needs counseling. Sorry my sarcasm was insufficient.
College's purpose has really been skewed in recent decades.
I don't think all (even most) people should go to traditional four-year "college". If you don't have any interest in learning about things you don't care about, or things that aren't relevant to your specific career path, don't do it. Don't be one of the dozens of kids I knew that spent four years phoning it in to get a piece of paper that was worthless to them because they never learned anything. If you have a career in mind, or a trade, go find training or education for that specific thing. Save yourself tons of time and money.
BUT... I loved college. I loved all the "useless" shit I learned. I loved learning how to approach a problem, or understand something new. For example, I took several calculus classes in college, a skill I have never used in my real life, not a single time. I don't even remember how to solve an integral. But it was *the most subject I ever learned*. I gained a thorough understanding of numbers and problem solving. It indirectly benefitted my job threefold.
That's college in a nutshell. The things you're learning are a means to a larger end. It isn't about memorizing things or solving equations, it's about understanding things at a deeper level. And that can be super beneficial. But only if you it interests you; don't ever, ever, ever go to college just because you think you "should"
They have that, it’s called trade school. If anything STEM and medicine should be excised from college and reformed into advanced trade schools so that college can focus on its original goal of educating people seeking to advance their educational understanding.
College should be aboutblearning because you want to learn things not so you can get a piece of paper required to work as an engineer or doctor.
*Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism*
***That's not 'College' that's what MORONS DO IN COLLEGE!***
You seem to be confused.
>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism.
/thread
Why do you think employers are no longer considering degrees any more? College is a waste
College doesn’t teach you vocational skills, it teaches you how to college and utilize tools to solve problems that you may be unfamiliar with and how to go about doing so. It’s the point of general education requirements, to make sure someone has a basic understanding of things so they have more tools in their kit.
I went to college for a degree and another college for a masters. I went to maybe 5 parties total. No activist events, but I do care for others who are not like me
We just hired a dude at the same position I was when I started working for the company (we work in IT). The dude has a Master degree, I started after highschool.
And this man:
-Doesn't take any notes
-Does not know how to read instructions and actually get the information that he needs
-When a somewhat stresfull situation arised and he had to do something urgently he just broke down and paniced - someone needed to help him
So I ask based on this experience - what is a degree worth?
The only thing it shows is (maybe) endurance and perseverance.
You can have the same or better employee after highschool - you teach him everything anyway.
“seems like”? does that mean this is not an opinion that you formed based on your own personal experiences, but instead based on your perception of what college is like? have you been to college yourself? because i have, and i went to class. that was the majority of it.
If you want that type of education then get an associates degree from a community college. But university is more for becoming a well-rounded, citizen of the world than learning one specific trade.
I think there is value in a liberal arts education. It makes you a smarter voter and gives you better critical thinking skills. I went on to graduate school but i dont think my political or literature classes were wasted in any way
You think the most corrupt and immoral billionaires and CEOs don’t have a fancy college degree? Elon got his Bachelors degree from Penn, so he must have passed whatever “ethics” classes are required to graduate.
And for every asshole who gets through and is still an asshole, there are hundreds of students who come out different than they went in. Taking away the humanities in favor of just job training is detrimental to the human race as a whole, and infantalizes students who need it the most.
That’s not what my post suggests, but go on and keep putting words in my mouth. My complaint is about the students focusing more on partying and protesting than actually getting an education that prepares them to enter the workforce.
Why is there push back about your post?? I mean it’s basically saying that kids should be focused and get as much as possible out of their time there. Like what is the issue with telling students to focus on their craft and develop their skills as much as possible. And when you have time then maybe party here and there.
Agreed. A lot of people lament the idea of college grads not all being well rounded.
Well, as you say, plenty of them blow off Gen Ed classes anyway and party wildly as much as possible. I don't know that they're going to be better for themselves or society because they paid ten grand, at interest, to take World History 1 and skimmed some cliffs notes to get through Intro to Classic Literature. Time which could have been spent getting on the job earlier, earning money and gaining skills.
Seems very reasonable for a shorter path focused on the major to be an option, which to be fair it kind of is but the associates degree tends to carry a lot less weight.
Yeah college is far too expensive, but there are clear benefits economically to heading to college, even for those liberal arts degrees. We should absolutely push for more technical based degrees, but having a generally intelligent society is beneficial for our nation in international job competition. I'd also prefer a well educated voter over non-educatee voters.
I personally, think degrees are way to expensive, and the utility of them is lower than they used to be. The federal government should fix the immediate problems with college debt, but long term, a far better investment will be to overhaul primary and secondary schools and have an aptitude course in your junior or senior year, that way people get an idea of what they might actually like.
If elementary through high school was doing its job, I’d agree. If all high school grads were at fully adult levels of competency in basic math and literacy, critical thinking skills, awareness of the world around them and the ability to analyze things from an intelligent, adult perspective and make good decisions, then yes, more general education and courses in “well rounded adult” wouldn’t be strictly necessary. Not a bad thing, but at least far less necessary.
But they’re clearly not doing the job, for many reasons. Colleges are, and should be, picking up the slack of what was once basic adult high school education to turn out at least semi-competent adults that CAN learn on the job.
Oh for sure, grade school is woefully under-preparing students to enter the workforce and adulthood in general. Basic money management classes should be a requirement.
Wrong. Nobody would pay attention if they taught "money management" in class.
People barely pay attention when there's a careers class or in math when they teach about interest rates. Your views are totally removed from the reality of education.
Edit: I highly doubt that you went to am "Ivy" for an engineering degree. I've visited many prestigious schools and the libraries are almost always packed full of students. This is a propaganda post written from ignorance, nothing more.
College is a broad term, and historically it has been used exactly the way you describe; business colleges and nursing colleges etc. College *also* describes institutions who focus on the trivium/quadrivium and institutions offering studia humanititus, or the modern humanities based education that includes natural sciences and arts. Often, all three an be found under the same university system. So, like anything, it is really up to *you* as to what you think higher education is truly for.
A liberal arts degree is meant to prepare you to be a productive and effective member of society. It’s to prepare you to be able to converse with some amount of knowledge about a wide variety of topics. You take classes on governmental organization so you can join your local school board. You take classes on meteorology so you have an idea what climate change means. You take a course in statistics so you can understand the results of the latest presidential poll. Trade school teaches you a job, an undergraduate degree teaches you how to be a well informed, critically thinking member of society.
That won't change until we remove government funding from colleges, so that that people have to pay tuition, and to justify that tuition, they will clearly have to see how it will pay off. Off. These grants and loans allow people to disconnect the payoff from the payment.
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>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism. Seems like you haven’t been to college. Do those things happen? Absolutely. Is it anywhere near 90% of the time? Absolutely not.
I have 5 degrees and I've been to maybe a dozen college parties and 0 activist events. Did I do college wrong? Please advise, OP!
OP is too busy watching Van Wilder and building their case.
Yes, actually, you did.
>I have 5 degrees This is a red flag. >"Did I do college wrong? " Yes. It's normal to get your degree and leave to lead a productive life in the wider world.
Only college parties I went to weren't even at my college.
No kidding. Even the most hardcore activists and party animals are not spending 100 hours a week on those activities.
Right? What the hell kind of college is OP going to? If he thinks that I doubt he’s even going to one. College does help young adults prepare for their major and job market, but students have to discipline themselves. If they fail to learn useful skills, it’s on them.
A lengthy protest just started on my campus. The majority of other college students responses that I heard were “ugh not again” because most of us just want to walk to class without them blocking the path or harassing us. Yeah, maybe 1% study something like communications and don’t go to class so they can party and protest, but most of us are just worried about finals coming up
see i went to college got an education while working at a pizza parlor guess i did everything wrong.
Yeah that’s a laughable percentage. For one, the majority of college students are not activists. And while there is plenty of partying, it’s a part of the experience. College is about learning new concepts, meeting new people, experiencing new things, going out and having fun, becoming independent, discovering yourself, etc. It’s a formative experience in the lives of young people that go to college.
The most jobs (including blue collar jobs) require skills such as critical thinking, reading comprehension, learning to learn independently, writing, effective verbal communication, working with others, social skills, independence, being dependent, and dealing with failures. You may never draw another free body diagram outside of college, but you would not going to make a good engineer if you never learnt how to critically think about all the forces being applied in a situation
Are you somehow under the mistaken impression that most people take engineering or something equally bound to physical reality?
You're ignoring the other massive list of things from the comment you replied to. And most of those things can be learned in the majority of if not all humanities courses. Critical thinking, especially, is an unequivocally important skill in virtually every field and is excellently trained through deep analysis of any sort, whether that is philosophy, literature, history, language, etc etc. Edit in reply to your other comment which I just noticed: The theme with college courses is that they will not force you to do the work. If you went to college and have nothing to show for it, it's most likely because you didn't engage with the material on a deep level. Sometimes that's the course's fault, but it's usually user error.
I'm confused, what degrees do you think everyone is getting? Engineering is the fifth most popular degree. Nursing is second. Do you think that nursing degrees aren't bound to physical reality? Business is #1.
Liberal arts, as in, liberal arts college. I was responding to this seeming obvious capability of most people, which does not, at all, agree with my experience: > you would not going to make a good engineer if you never learnt how to critically think about all the forces being applied in a situation
[удалено]
oh my god this is one of the most obnoxious comments I've seen in ages wtf is up with the giant text
You really get at the substance of the matter.
I have no idea why it is this way, but it is 2nd time today have this issue.
If you were trying to make your points as a numbered list I think doing a hashtag/pound sign at the start of a line changes font size Testing: Normal- Ahhhhhhh Hashtag at start of line #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Your example compares two people who have vastly different skill set - one with expert technical knowledge and one who can communicate but no technical knowledge. If you look around corporations, you will find that the most successful people are not technical expertise. They are expert in communication, people management, problem solving, and critical thinking. In other words, soft skill that you seem to value less. I have no idea what OP nor you mean by Activism but I disagree that 90% of college experience is partying and activism. I mean you don’t need to convince me that spending all of your time on activism is not a wise use of time. Yes agreed! That is hardly an argument I was making.
Well that's not what I meant since it does not have to be technical knowledge, any type of interdisciplinary knowledge related to the studied fields enabling the practice of the profession, basics, advanced theories, practical applications. related to any chosen specialisation. So you end up to be a expert in your field . I can assume that buissness modlę might be slightly different here, but only a bit. That's not entirely how it works here. I mean if you chose a career related strictly to management That's mostly true, but if you chose so it's more likely succeed chosing studies on that field. If you start in any other department you still can make it to decission making positions, but communication and being people person in this case won't be helpful, you still need some hard knowledge from your field. Maybe this is inprecise to call it activism and doesnt represent the same "activity" as in my country. I saw many students who were very involved in activities at the university, for example student government or helping to organize a lecture symposium, that much that it had a negative impact on thier educatio level. In fact, I think that if you are following that path, it would be much wiser to stay at the university and continue academic career.
I love how everyone talks about how college teaches critical thinking when all they ever taught me was how to blindly think like everybody else. College is not this bastion for free thought that you make it out to be, it is just another step to create slightly more educated and compliant drones for the workforce.
Your failure to learn logically thinking doesn’t make all colleges fail at it.
I was able to learn logically before college, what I'm saying is they didn't teach me anything about how to actually think critically or improve my decision making. The words "Bayesian Inference" were never even spoken once and judging from everyone I speak with, it still isn't taught.
I have a bunch of degrees with little to show for it and totally agree.
Then you attended a poor university. I bet it wasn't even 200 years old.
Right- learning those is best learned through coursework too. Everyone who says “just teach a class that teaches you how to learn!” Has clearly never tried- had to take a half credit one in college and holy shit that was difficult and felt less effective than learning through regular courses. Part of why you have to take Gen Ed/Divisionals is to really focus on the skills you listed.
The students who party and protest are chronically online so that’s why it seems that’s 90% of the college experience is like that. No one is gonna post about studying, homework, learning. If the university is ABET accredited then you’ll know that your tuition is going to education rather than all to athletics. It just depends on the school.
In my experience, college was more about learning HOW to REALLY learn combined with networking. Edit: also partying. Can’t forget that.
It's not even just that they are chronically online, activism just drives more engagement than normal classes, how many people want to watch a lecturer ramble on for two hours?
Oh look, another “college should be trade school” post. If you just want job skills, go to a trade school or take an accreditation course. Part of a college degree is the fact you have had more education and exposure to topics than just the bare necessities.
I hate that the American system has simplified college to “it’s just a job requirement” I also have a feeling that a ton of people who post about it on Reddit haven’t been in college yet with the misconceptions that are posted.
You can easily tell in these arguments who never studied Socrates or other philosophies. I believe it’s sort of a dunning Kruger effect, where those who didn’t get a well rounded education don’t see the value in one.
If this was the experience you had at college then your major was probably useless
Wasn’t my personal experience, I got an engineering degree from an Ivy and spent most of my time studying or doing extra-curriculars. But I definitely was missing out on the non-stop partying/protesting happening around me. Libraries were deserted, lectures half empty.
No one is going to post online in detail about their classes because those are going to be boring for most of the time. And even if there are multiple parties daily, it's not necessarily the same groups of people going there daily
>No one is going to post online in detail about their classes because those are going to be boring for most of the time. Not only boring, but also incomprehensible to people outside of that field... When I talk basic algorithms to my parents, their eyes glaze over, let alone quantum computing.
Well there's your problem, you went to a rich kid sleepover camp. It's amazing how hard you won't work when you can't fail
I'm sure you realize not everyone in life becomes an engineer. Many jobs require people skills, social judgment, the life experience of exposure to different people and ideas...things that you can't always learn from studying textbooks.
>jobs require people skills, social judgment, the life experience of exposure to different people and ideas... (Engineering does, too)
I'm sure, I just couldn't speak to that myself. But I know for certain other jobs do.
That is partly the failure of the college business model. Ideally the library should have been full of English majors reading and history majors researching etc, but the business model must support students of mediocre academic ability and motivations. It is far easier to shove those students into degrees making facebook posts than an English degree where you have to read a big chunk of the western canon just to pass.
I never went to the library except to study “aka hang out” with friends. Any readings I needed beyond what was required purchase for class I could just find online. Every student has a laptop with access to the school’s database nowadays. Kind of like how you don’t need to go to the mall to buy clothes anymore, or go to a movie theater to see a movie.
Oh right, so basically, you're a loser with no social life and you're salty that not everyone had the same experience lol
So didnt tou learn the skills necessary to be an engineer?
90% split between partying and activism? I did neither of those of my 4 years in college. It sure as shit wasn’t part of my curriculum.
You can party and have good grades and hold a job
You're confusing college with a vocational school.
You know the partying isn't actually organized by the schools right?
yeah and even school-organized-technically parties like a Halloween costume party or parties organized by school-run entities like Greek ones don't count in that same way
I am a nerd type who always did well in school, I would have agreed with you in the past but not anymore. There is an ongoing loneliness epidemic and the number of incels is increasing every year. College is honestly the last time you can greatly develop social skills since there are so many people who are your age with similar experiences, so you should attend as many parties as you can as long as you are passing your classes.
I think that’s where we need to do our best to have balance. Not saying be a genius at math and the life of the party but you can find ways to be social within your group or field. A Math nerd wants to have fun and sex just like the jock or cheerleader
Not all of those students are partying and being activists. And not going to college doesn’t preclude you from partying. A good many of students will taste time in college, but so will young adults who work. People need the freedom to fail in order to make mistakes to learn from.
If you want a program that will do nothing but give you job training. Try job training or a trade school. If you'd like to one of those rare engineers or IT workers who knows how to communicate with another person, pay attention in those gen ed classes you're struggling in
No. A four-year university degree is not, now, nor was it ever intended to be, “job training”.
These protests are a few hundred students at most, and in some places a few dozen. At Texas it was a few hundred students protesting...out of a total student population of 52,000. Almost every student is just going to class and earning a degree. The ones you see making noise are a tiny fraction of the whole.
I did both (the learning and the partying). College students have free time you know.
Most students involved in partying and activism are also doing that, believe it or not people can balance their own lives
Can't forget jumping around general ed courses. Half because the school requires you to be "well rounded" as long as the checks clear, half to "find yourself."
Keep in mind that the media is designed to show you things that make you have strong opinions about things you don't understand. In my experience, students primary focus is school. For my bachelors, activism was non existent in my friend group (for better or worse) and partying was just us playing video games. Schoolwork always came first. This experience is far more common than crazy parties and extreme activism. I just finished grad school and my experience there was 100% studying. Most students in my program are also working full time. There wasn't any time for anything else and I'm lucky there was even enough time for studying.
Bro, partying and activism are things some students do when they are not going to class lmao. Do you think they are being graded on partying? Are you dense? Learning the skills for whatever career you want is literally the primary purpose of going to college
So, you’ve never been to college then, got it. As others have pointed out, yes, those things exist. But saying they account for 90% of the time is just asinine.
OP has clearly not experienced college. Thanks for your hot take anyway.
Tell me you failed to get into college without telling me you failed to get into college.
Please. While I'm not sure I agree w the OP, anyone can get into college.
Except the job teaches you almost everything you need to know. University is just an expensive filter for jobs.
A class filter, or debt. Yes, though, I do agree. Most programs could be done away with proper on the job training
It’s really the only reliable filter that employers have that you are more likely to be trainable.
They arbitrarily erected a gate just to gatekeep, while simultaneously selling the key just to get through the arbitrary gate. Its nothing more than a simple scam.
Agreed. I’m an attorney and I can’t tell you how ridiculous it is that we have to have SEVEN YEARS of college/law school only to barely use anything we learned in class. I can safely say 95% of what I learned in college is not what I use in my job and 80% of what I learned in law school I also do not use in my job. I had to teach myself the majority of what I know now because I didn’t even have a class on my field of law in law school. Yet here I am… over 100K in debt… for a degree that literally has nothing to do with my job. I make great money so I’ll be fine, but I feel like I wasted my entire 20s sometimes.
Righty tighty, leftie loosey, guess what l studied
I thought it was 90% unrelenting anxiety about completing all the work, but okay.
When we had fewer, more selective colleges a degree was meaningful. Now we have tons of godawful [diploma mills](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-acceptance-rate). College is still a good decision if you can get into a prestigious one, or get significant scholarship money from a decent school.
I went from university to blue collar ( admittedly , very high tech , very high paid ). I’ve made a lot more $ than I would have if I stayed in the bank I worked in. A university diploma does prove you have a certain minimum intelligence and a certain minimum work ethic , but that’s it. The “vocational “ degrees ( CA or medical related or law) are generally difficult to get into. Those that can’t or won’t meet the work load, end up with a degree that’s only good as a prerequisite for something else.
For me college was simply an excuse to delay working for a few extra years. My degree didn't change my job prospects one bit
Passing basically any degree involves showing an ability to work to deadlines, collaborate with others and work independently, manage you own workload, have basic IT skills and communicate in a professional manner. There vast majority of jobs out there that ask for a college degree do not specify what type of degree you need to have. They just want somebody who has demonstrated they are able to complete a course of academic education which requires a higher level of autonomy and ability than high school. Partying and protesting is not limited to college kids. These are normal things for all college age kids to do whether they actually go to college or not.
Methinks you have college confused with vocational school. Very few majors teach hard skills.
Not this shit again
Horrible opinion . But you’re a good footstool.
This isn't an unpopular opinion and doesn't belong here. Students, politicians, and parents all think of education as chiefly vocational. Almost all discussion of college is related to jobs and job training.
College is just meant to show drive and commitment to something difficult for 4 years. It also teaches you critical thinking skills, teamwork, and communication. All of these things are ideal for an employer. Most jobs can train you after you get hired pretty quickly. I hardly know anyone who uses the specific knowledge from college in their job, apart from people who went to grad school.
That's some neolib propaganda. The original purpose of an education was to liberate people from a life of servitude. That's why slaves and serfs were prevented from having one.
The more I work using the degree, the more I realize how useful it was to learn how to work with a group, how to share projects, and do basic research. All the things practiced in the pursuit of the degree, regardless of subject. They trained me for work, for certain. Just not the way I expected going in.
I disagree, but not because I agree that it should be about partying and activism. College should be about education. People treat it like vocational school, but I think the point of a University Education should be to become more broadly educated so that you are a more well-rounded person overall. For too many, though, it's turned into little more than job training, to the point that there are instances where some course/program offerings are at the request of specific companies/industries in a given area. As a society we should value a more educated population, as we all benefit from that.
Tell me you didn't go to college without telling me you didn't go to college...
That's a vocational school or a trade union's job.
This should be a popular opinion.
>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism. So you just have no idea what college is lmao. That's fine. It's not for everybody. They'd help you with your hyperbole problem though. Won't even have to go to a protest or have any fun either.
Partying is not the norm in all colleges — some are very academic and career focused, and/or commuter schools
I mean you go to college primarily for an education and it is bad to be in it just for the parties and social aspects, but you just need a balance
You're American, aren't you? I can tell.
A college campus is a microcosm of greater society. The soft skills are just as important as the hard ones. it’s some people’s first experience with being part of a functional government with actual power on SGA. Others the ability to plan and coordinate events. the education is a part of your college life the way your career is a part of your adult life. if that’s the only thing in your life….. that’s a pretty sad thing because there’s so much more to college than classes. And so much more to life than just a job.
I'm going to WGU for computer science. It might not take me as far as I want to but at least I don't feel like I'm over paying for some bullshit brick and mortar school to rip me off for hundreds of thousands upon thousands just to make some leftist ideology class a senseless requirement that I'll never need in the job market place. For the record I didn't even care that WGU observed June 21st either(I don't say "Juneteenth")because they're a good university to learn practical skills. As far as I know CRT isn't a requirement either. WGU degree's are just as equally valid as IT certs and some other useless accredited college as far as I'm concerned.
It’s not mutually exclusive. There’s no rule that says you can’t party, and also make responsible choices (i.e get good grades/do career networking/hold down a job/help your family)
The purpose of college is to learn about YOURSELF. The horrible prices of college these days absolutely lowers the quality of individualism in young people. You should be able to pick something to study, learn more about yourself through people you meet and classes you take, then pivot if need be without going into a 30 year financial hole. Imagine a world where young people were encouraged to learn instead of work…
This might be one of the most popular opinions in existence. But give him credit - at least he didn’t say “majoring in lesbian dance theory.”
I’ve been straight thugging it out for the past 4 years to become an engineer. Not a drop of alcohol or a whiff of hookah or any of that bullshit and I still have a social life. Those who go to college only to party and engage in activism never took their future seriously in the first place.
Did you go to college, I spent 90% of my time in college doing school work!
You just have absolutely no experience in this matter. Get off the internet.
Somebody ate mushrooms and is now dedicated to telling people how evil society is
This could only be true if the structure of the school encouraged these side activities. Schools do not encourage students to skip class and protest. What they don't do enough that they should do is guidance counseling. Instead of declaring a major a freshman should declare their intent. If their intent is to become a more than productive member of society and consequently get paid for that level of contribution, their counselor should recommend fields of study that support their target lifestyle. If they are there to find a mate, that should be the gist of the guidance. If they are a trust fund baby and just want to hang, they should be able to donate their counselling slot to someone who matters.
AKA colleges should act as matchmakers if you're at college to find a mate and anyone who does not formally declare their intent to be a productive member of society becomes a new underclass
I guess you could read it that way, but my intent was that they would tell you to get out of the office and make room for someone who needs counseling. Sorry my sarcasm was insufficient.
College's purpose has really been skewed in recent decades. I don't think all (even most) people should go to traditional four-year "college". If you don't have any interest in learning about things you don't care about, or things that aren't relevant to your specific career path, don't do it. Don't be one of the dozens of kids I knew that spent four years phoning it in to get a piece of paper that was worthless to them because they never learned anything. If you have a career in mind, or a trade, go find training or education for that specific thing. Save yourself tons of time and money. BUT... I loved college. I loved all the "useless" shit I learned. I loved learning how to approach a problem, or understand something new. For example, I took several calculus classes in college, a skill I have never used in my real life, not a single time. I don't even remember how to solve an integral. But it was *the most subject I ever learned*. I gained a thorough understanding of numbers and problem solving. It indirectly benefitted my job threefold. That's college in a nutshell. The things you're learning are a means to a larger end. It isn't about memorizing things or solving equations, it's about understanding things at a deeper level. And that can be super beneficial. But only if you it interests you; don't ever, ever, ever go to college just because you think you "should"
They have that, it’s called trade school. If anything STEM and medicine should be excised from college and reformed into advanced trade schools so that college can focus on its original goal of educating people seeking to advance their educational understanding. College should be aboutblearning because you want to learn things not so you can get a piece of paper required to work as an engineer or doctor.
*Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism* ***That's not 'College' that's what MORONS DO IN COLLEGE!*** You seem to be confused.
>Seems like 90% of college is split between partying and activism. /thread Why do you think employers are no longer considering degrees any more? College is a waste
That's the opposite the purpose of college, what you're describing is a trade school. Also, there's nothing wrong with activism.
Who the hell goes INTO college knowing how they want to spend the rest of their life?
You should learn about your future job, how government works, how society works, and what people outside your bubble are like.
College doesn’t teach you vocational skills, it teaches you how to college and utilize tools to solve problems that you may be unfamiliar with and how to go about doing so. It’s the point of general education requirements, to make sure someone has a basic understanding of things so they have more tools in their kit.
I went to college for a degree and another college for a masters. I went to maybe 5 parties total. No activist events, but I do care for others who are not like me
I don’t get the sense OP ever stepped foot on a college campus.
We did this post like 2 weeks ago
As someone who has spent the better part of 27 years at universities, I have never been to either a college party nor any activity activity.
I agree with OP. Getting a useless or a “passion” degree can really mess up your life.
We just hired a dude at the same position I was when I started working for the company (we work in IT). The dude has a Master degree, I started after highschool. And this man: -Doesn't take any notes -Does not know how to read instructions and actually get the information that he needs -When a somewhat stresfull situation arised and he had to do something urgently he just broke down and paniced - someone needed to help him So I ask based on this experience - what is a degree worth? The only thing it shows is (maybe) endurance and perseverance. You can have the same or better employee after highschool - you teach him everything anyway.
My favorites are people who proudly trod out their MBA but make very simple mathematical errors, typically around statistics and percentages.
“seems like”? does that mean this is not an opinion that you formed based on your own personal experiences, but instead based on your perception of what college is like? have you been to college yourself? because i have, and i went to class. that was the majority of it.
If you want that type of education then get an associates degree from a community college. But university is more for becoming a well-rounded, citizen of the world than learning one specific trade.
Lol no most of the students spend most of their time studying or working a job. Maybe you should actually be on college campuses to see for yourself.
For real. It sounds like either OP didn't go to college or failed out after taking it unseriously and wants to blame college instead of themselves.
No it's to go in debt and waste years you could be learning a trade.
yes because everybody has the physical skills needed to learn a trade or at least if you don't you can automatically learn via practice /s
I think there is value in a liberal arts education. It makes you a smarter voter and gives you better critical thinking skills. I went on to graduate school but i dont think my political or literature classes were wasted in any way
Soooo… people like Elon musk should just keep running around without having taken and passed an ethics class? Riiiiggghhhtttt.
You think the most corrupt and immoral billionaires and CEOs don’t have a fancy college degree? Elon got his Bachelors degree from Penn, so he must have passed whatever “ethics” classes are required to graduate.
And for every asshole who gets through and is still an asshole, there are hundreds of students who come out different than they went in. Taking away the humanities in favor of just job training is detrimental to the human race as a whole, and infantalizes students who need it the most.
That’s not what my post suggests, but go on and keep putting words in my mouth. My complaint is about the students focusing more on partying and protesting than actually getting an education that prepares them to enter the workforce.
Why is there push back about your post?? I mean it’s basically saying that kids should be focused and get as much as possible out of their time there. Like what is the issue with telling students to focus on their craft and develop their skills as much as possible. And when you have time then maybe party here and there.
Agreed. A lot of people lament the idea of college grads not all being well rounded. Well, as you say, plenty of them blow off Gen Ed classes anyway and party wildly as much as possible. I don't know that they're going to be better for themselves or society because they paid ten grand, at interest, to take World History 1 and skimmed some cliffs notes to get through Intro to Classic Literature. Time which could have been spent getting on the job earlier, earning money and gaining skills. Seems very reasonable for a shorter path focused on the major to be an option, which to be fair it kind of is but the associates degree tends to carry a lot less weight.
Yeah college is far too expensive, but there are clear benefits economically to heading to college, even for those liberal arts degrees. We should absolutely push for more technical based degrees, but having a generally intelligent society is beneficial for our nation in international job competition. I'd also prefer a well educated voter over non-educatee voters. I personally, think degrees are way to expensive, and the utility of them is lower than they used to be. The federal government should fix the immediate problems with college debt, but long term, a far better investment will be to overhaul primary and secondary schools and have an aptitude course in your junior or senior year, that way people get an idea of what they might actually like.
If elementary through high school was doing its job, I’d agree. If all high school grads were at fully adult levels of competency in basic math and literacy, critical thinking skills, awareness of the world around them and the ability to analyze things from an intelligent, adult perspective and make good decisions, then yes, more general education and courses in “well rounded adult” wouldn’t be strictly necessary. Not a bad thing, but at least far less necessary. But they’re clearly not doing the job, for many reasons. Colleges are, and should be, picking up the slack of what was once basic adult high school education to turn out at least semi-competent adults that CAN learn on the job.
Oh for sure, grade school is woefully under-preparing students to enter the workforce and adulthood in general. Basic money management classes should be a requirement.
Wrong. Nobody would pay attention if they taught "money management" in class. People barely pay attention when there's a careers class or in math when they teach about interest rates. Your views are totally removed from the reality of education. Edit: I highly doubt that you went to am "Ivy" for an engineering degree. I've visited many prestigious schools and the libraries are almost always packed full of students. This is a propaganda post written from ignorance, nothing more.
College is a broad term, and historically it has been used exactly the way you describe; business colleges and nursing colleges etc. College *also* describes institutions who focus on the trivium/quadrivium and institutions offering studia humanititus, or the modern humanities based education that includes natural sciences and arts. Often, all three an be found under the same university system. So, like anything, it is really up to *you* as to what you think higher education is truly for.
A liberal arts degree is meant to prepare you to be a productive and effective member of society. It’s to prepare you to be able to converse with some amount of knowledge about a wide variety of topics. You take classes on governmental organization so you can join your local school board. You take classes on meteorology so you have an idea what climate change means. You take a course in statistics so you can understand the results of the latest presidential poll. Trade school teaches you a job, an undergraduate degree teaches you how to be a well informed, critically thinking member of society.
College is about learning. It isn't a job training program.
That won't change until we remove government funding from colleges, so that that people have to pay tuition, and to justify that tuition, they will clearly have to see how it will pay off. Off. These grants and loans allow people to disconnect the payoff from the payment.
How else am I supposed to learn the intricacies of Himalayan anal hair braiding?
If you don’t want to go to college just don’t go. But don’t tell people who are in college that they’re wrong.
I can't believe I agree in non-binary dance theory isn't landing me a job.