>People enter into this wrong attitude regarding the important of education.
The problem is American higher ed is increasingly not enabling that sort of exploration of knowledge. When I went to college, I had foreign languages I wanted to learn, history of cultures that weren't covered in high school that I wanted to study, and plenty of courses from their catalog all of which looked interesting to me. But since none of the items I was interested in were in the already pre-approved list of "electives" I was allowed to take as part of my major, the only way to take those courses was to add them to the already 4 years maxed out full time credits + summer school schedule required to graduate in 4 years. Many of my younger colleagues have expressed similar frustrations about their times in school.
But I should also note that if students are going to college with the expectation that they will be able to hyper specialize it's at least in part because as a society we keep telling them that lie. I can't even count the number of times I've heard students who express frustration with schooling and especially with learning subjects they have no interest in being told "when you get to college, you get to pick the stuff you want to learn." And we support this lie by encouraging them to apply to and attend expensive larger 4 year schooling when we know damn well that the first 2 years are almost entirely gen-ed and for most students would be better spent taking those classes as cheaper, local community colleges.
This is even further compounded by the fact that companies are increasingly using higher education degrees as barriers to employment regardless of the actual need for higher education for the job in question. So for many students are being forced into getting an "education" when what they're really after is a job. Here again, promoting more community college systems with degrees in applied sciences would help, but in general a recognition that not everyone needs or has the time/maturity/focus or financial backing to obtain an "education" at that age is badly missing.
The problem is American higher ed is increasingly not enabling that sort of exploration of knowledge. When I went to college, I had foreign languages I wanted to learn, history of cultures that weren't covered in high school that I wanted to study, and plenty of courses from their catalog all of which looked interesting to me. But since none of the items I was interested in were in the already pre-approved list of "electives" I was allowed to take as part of my major, the only way to take those courses was to add them to the already 4 years maxed out full time credits + summer school schedule required to graduate in 4 years. Many of my younger colleagues have expressed similar frustrations about their times in school.
But I should also note that if students are going to college with the expectation that they will be able to hyper specialize it's at least in part because as a society we keep telling them that lie. I can't even count the number of times I've heard students who express frustration with schooling and especially with learning subjects they have no interest in being told "when you get to college, you get to pick the stuff you want to learn." And we support this lie by encouraging them to apply to and attend expensive larger 4 year schooling when we know damn well that the first 2 years are almost entirely gen-ed and for most students would be better spent taking those classes as cheaper, local community colleges.
This is even further compounded by the fact that companies are increasingly using higher education degrees as barriers to employment regardless of the actual need for higher education for the job in question. So for many students are being forced into getting an "education" when what they're really after is a job. Here again, promoting more community college systems with degrees in applied sciences would help, but in general a recognition that not everyone needs or has the time/maturity/focus or financial backing to obtain an "education" at that age is badly missing.