It's interesting how many people seem to read this as an argument that college is no good for anyone as opposed to the more reasonable college is not good for everyone. Many people end up in college not because it is a good fit but because it's the default thing to do, because people assume you're a complete failure if you don't and because it's artificially required to have most good jobs. The number of openings that require a college degree—but don't care which one—makes this abundantly clear: businesses are using it as a signal that's entirely independent of what you learned.
I've always been curious, and a little disturbed, at how inflexible a college education is for something supposedly universal. People are different and need different things from their education, but everyone gets the same sort of classes at the same sorts of medium-to-large institutions. If you want something less oriented around classes or smaller and more personal or more specialized or more hands on or not forced into digestible quarter- or semester-sized chunks, you're completely out of luck.
But if this doesn't work, it's apparently a problem with you, not with the system.
And then, of course, we turn around and feign surprise when college prices go up as we artificially drive demand through the roof.
I personally valued the college experience I've had so far... with the exception of most of my classes. What really worked for me was doing research, taking graduate courses, learning on my own, interacting with other students and a bunch of external things like working part-time at a startup. But there's simply no other way to get into research, even though many seem to agree that the overlap between strong study skills and research potential is, at best, limited.
I'd like to be doing research now and, false modesty aside, would be entirely capable, but it's very difficult outside the inflexible system. It really doesn't need to be.
In hindsight, I would have loved an alternative. But, as far as I know, that alternative does not exist and, if it did, I would not have known about it in high school. The only other choice would have been going to a small liberal arts college, which has more classes and less of everything I actually liked.
The pressure to go to college is too high. The worst part is that the pressure itself is not irrational because of the irrational way the rest of the system is set up.
I've always been curious, and a little disturbed, at how inflexible a college education is for something supposedly universal. People are different and need different things from their education, but everyone gets the same sort of classes at the same sorts of medium-to-large institutions. If you want something less oriented around classes or smaller and more personal or more specialized or more hands on or not forced into digestible quarter- or semester-sized chunks, you're completely out of luck.
But if this doesn't work, it's apparently a problem with you, not with the system.
And then, of course, we turn around and feign surprise when college prices go up as we artificially drive demand through the roof.
I personally valued the college experience I've had so far... with the exception of most of my classes. What really worked for me was doing research, taking graduate courses, learning on my own, interacting with other students and a bunch of external things like working part-time at a startup. But there's simply no other way to get into research, even though many seem to agree that the overlap between strong study skills and research potential is, at best, limited.
I'd like to be doing research now and, false modesty aside, would be entirely capable, but it's very difficult outside the inflexible system. It really doesn't need to be.
In hindsight, I would have loved an alternative. But, as far as I know, that alternative does not exist and, if it did, I would not have known about it in high school. The only other choice would have been going to a small liberal arts college, which has more classes and less of everything I actually liked.
The pressure to go to college is too high. The worst part is that the pressure itself is not irrational because of the irrational way the rest of the system is set up.