When making our final calls on where to go to college, seniors are constantly reminded about the future: not just school, but employment and professions ten to twenty years from now. Many people ask about our plans because they’re genuinely curious, others want to gauge our intellectual curiosity, and perhaps others want to test our ambition. While there is nothing inherently wrong with any of this, the question remains a simple one:
“Why does it matter?”
Naturally, parents and relatives are worried about their children growing up in a world where faulty job markets and economic uncertainty have swarmed every aspect of our thought process when it comes to making headway in an adult life. But we also have to question whether universities and colleges are purely pre-vocational or whether they actually serve as conduits for higher learning. Actually, the answer is that of a mixed nature.
Doctors, lawyers, and various types of professionals have to get through exam after exam, class after class due to the nature of their work – this makes perfect sense considering the fact they have extraordinary powers to help, govern, and power our society. We naturally want the best trained people working in these fields. Additionally, the rise of new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing as well as the associated geopolitical competition means that getting people into such fields, often lucrative/rewarding, is paramount. But if everyone went this route, only using college as a stepping stone for a career, who would do the job of academicians and thinkers?
Historically, people of older ages studied and created because of their passions for their subjects. Learners, scientists, mathematicians, and poets mastered new forms of literature, tracked the motion of celestial bodies, and did complex calculations from scratch. Academics then did not focus solely on the possibility of employment in connection with their studies – as Aristotle believed, a “fulfilled person” is the same as an educated person. In other words, learning is for the sake of the acquisition of knowledge and the personal satisfaction of having inched closer to some truth, whatever it may be or what field it may be connected to.
In the modern era, we are forced to reconcile the hardships of educational attainment and the job market with the need for a modern liberal arts education. But think of it this way – whether in a mansion or hut, a Mercedes or Prius, the greatest faculty of a human is their intelligence. The power of the ability to learn, to know, and to grow, coupled with knowledge in a field or fields that lead you to greater self-discovery is unparalleled when it comes to expanding someone’s reasoning, abstract thinking, or introspection.
What we are seeing today is a pushback against the ideals of an egalitarian, encompassing education that seeks to enlighten, not to merely lead on into a high-earning job. Of course, some of the concern by politicians and ordinary people is warranted because of the current economic situation; but, are we really willing to stop learning or learn just for applications when the beauty and intricateness in many areas of study stares at us openly? These decisions are ours to make – let’s hope we chose wisely.
Skyline Learning Center 