From the title of this post, this is what I will be pondering today. I guess I was somewhat inspired to ponder this after reading Excellent Sheep by Alan Dershowitz (a title I’ll be referencing a bit…).
I feel that society views college as a stepping stone to other paths – whether that’s a job, med school, grad school, and so forth. Really, a lot of things in life are a stepping stone; elementary school is seen as a way to build important skills to prepare for the rigor of middle school (especially in terms of social and study skills) and middle school is seen as a way to prepare for high school – there are more classes, more expectations, and grades suddenly become real.
High school is when things become even more serious. Now, there’s a stronger extrinsic motivation driving our actions; for many, there’s that pressure to get into college. Not only to get into a college, but also to get into a good college… where a “good college” translates to one with a low acceptance rate. Now, I’m not saying that all people are like this; yet from navigating the school system for quite a while now, this sentiment tends to dominate.
I got a completely different sentiment after reading Dershowitz’s Excellent Sheep, though. He completely rejected the sentiment I described above, criticizing the “elite education system” – the practice of how from day one, students are bred with the intention of getting into a top college (and later, climbing the ranks of prestigious opportunities) – and explained a whole history of how this proposed system came to be in the first place (I won’t go into all that right now, but maybe that would make for a good book review!).
However, Dershowitz proposed another purpose for college – a purpose I feel that’s been overshadowed in the quest for prestige. He proposed using college as a way to learn; as a way to discover new passions, broaden our horizons, and just learn for learning’s sake.
Isn’t having more genuinely passionate people the key to making the world a better place? I would hope that a college education (and education in general) is supposed to mold us into genuinely passionate people, with a desire to improve the world and do good for other people – not because we crave recognition, but because we care. This “moral education” is often overlooked; yet, it gives purpose to all other types of education. College should help us develop this moral understanding, in addition to helping us discover what our passions are.
Maybe all this is very idealistic. Yes, college is one step closer to a career – and the more prestigious careers will pay more, so this motivation is understandable. But college, and life, should be more than this; it should incorporate an authentic passion. This could be pursued without getting into an “elite” college; it could be pursued anywhere. I’m still in high school, and therefore I don’t know much about the college experience. However, I’m hoping that it’ll help me figure out what exactly I want to do – something at the intersection of stability and fulfillment.
Ultimately, the purpose of college is not to serve as the end point, but as a milestone – even as a starting point – in our unique journeys to find ourselves.
