Why education is worth it, and also worthless

(Or, a break from work during the last weekend of school while everyone else is out smoking.)


I'm well aware that there are kids
who feel angry and jealous that their friends are off at a big college, while they spend the year in a single place that is sometimes too small to call home. And I'm aware, too, that there are those of my friends who are absolutely content with the money they saved by not running off to a distant institution. But whenever I feel most pleased with my expensive home-away-from home that's 25 miles from the 'Big Apple,' I'll often wonder what those two views can do to a person and what either could have done to me.

Inspirational picture of clouds'n'stuff.

 
Just a year before I came to school, I thought I would have been perfectly prepared to save my parents 100 grand by working close to home, occasionally writing something brilliant for the newspapers with a chance novel on the side, and eventually settling into a happy routine of meditative labor and lounging and God knows what. And even then, I know I was looking to my older brother, anxiously waiting for him to declare he was moving out and becoming financially independent; and all the while that I watched him stay at home, I wondered then, as I do now, how miserably my perfect money-saving scheme would have failed. There was just too much doubt in my mind for any of it to have worked as I wanted; and maybe the only reason I stayed so far away from college in my mind was because it was something I could not imagine, and anyway, I didn't want to turn into an elitist like Obama.

That's a joke. However, I was definitely concerned that I would be distancing myself from my friends, who grew up with me in a city that averages the lower middle class of well-offness, by going to school in New York, one of the most expensive places I could possibly choose. Scholarships help, but there's definitely been a different financial mindset here.

Of course I am proud and happy to spend these four years in an international environment of youth and ambition, but I am not looking to tell anyone that you cannot also be happy and dream if you went to a technical school your friends haven't heard of or if you are always working from home. The thought that crossed my mind today is that, having once stood at the end of high school wondering what comes next and whether I had any power over the answer, I realized there are a few things I would have liked to know then that could have reassured me with some feeling of direction and purpose. Mainly, I would have liked to know what happens at college so that, at college, I would know what to expect--or, without college, I would at least know how to catch up with my elitist friends in New York and Boston.

People. Some know what
they want, many don't.

We used to call the world "a scary place" because, when communities were isolated, you never really knew what was on the other side of that great big forest at the end of town. Now, with Google Images to show you that every town kind of looks the same, the world still does not look any less scary. Your teachers in school constantly warn you that your competitors in the work place are the brightest minds from India and China; your career center tells you to train yourself in versatility, because allegedly you are going to go through more career-changes than either of your parents; your politicians tell you to start a business and hire people because, actually, there are no jobs anywhere for you to go through. I know my high school had the particular problem of telling everyone that they ought to go to college in order to make more money: first of all, that doesn't do anything to relieve all of the stress we already go through to get our diploma, but besides this anxiety, I was always left with the empty feeling that all college could possibly do was provide me with a piece of paper that said "employable," for the hefty fee of a couple hundred thousand bucks--oh, and don't forget your second mortgage.

Paying for college sucks, and the prices we expect our families to pay are completely ridiculous, don't get me wrong on that--but one of the first myths I think I would have liked to hear dispelled when I was in 12th grade was, it is one hundred percent worth it and necessary. College is not necessary--a liberal arts degree is just one way to find work if you are not a mechanic, or a cook, or Bill Gates (correct me if I'm wrong about cooks). Spending money, however, is. It isn't worth the misery to think of your college tuition as a fee. It is far more useful to think of it as an investment, and as Bruno Mars and all of our boys (and girls) on Wall St. well appreciate, investments are key to producing wealth. Which wealth it is that you wish to produce is entirely up to you, and if your dream is to have all the money or all the brains, you're welcome to train your sights wherever you so desire. But I think the Occupation Wall Street movement is highly indicative of our widespread anxiety about losing our money to loans and our dreams to the Man. What Wall St. does understand is that you can't get money without spending money, and as long as you go into your investments with a good eye for what you can safely lose and how you can pay the money back (please don't take this as advice to run to your bank and invest all of your money), there may often be some worthwhile return. College has a return--which I will go into next--and, besides college, there are plenty more opportunities to look at an outrageous price tag as a future investment, so long as you are prepared to pay it back and are always conscious of the consequences if you fail to do so.

Yes, I think college will pay you back for sucking you dry, but how will it do this and will I get pie? (I apologize for making you read that--I couldn't resist the rhyme, and who doesn't want pie?) Dear reader, you will get all of the pie. What college provides ranges from social networking (a benefit which, admittedly, the university has no right to charge for--but maybe one of your friends will buy you a meal to lighten the load of your dining costs) to "knowledge," to a home. In other words, college sells you a bunch of potentials that might do nothing for you or a lot, and you certainly get that feeling from a range of strong and lousy classes. I've met people who do nothing but complain about the things some of their professors talk about or who think their campus is a pile of crap.Now and then, I would hope that something happens to offset those types of complaints, but it is true that not every college is a good fit. Different schools of majors and physical settings attract different kinds of people, and that's why visiting at least some of the colleges you apply for is important to recognizing these signals of whether you'll fit.

In terms of social networking, I probably don't have to hint too much at the potential for jobs and friends. I remember that, when I first came to school for orientation, it struck me how much the people I met reminded me of my friends back in high school; on the flip side of the coin, my friend has since transferred because she had such difficulty getting along with the people she encountered. When I'm on campus, I think I get along easily with the people I've met here, but there's also different subjects we talk about compared to my friends at home. My school has large film, journalism and drama departments, and the people I talk to here are much more involved in these subjects than most of my friends at home. I think that, every year, I pick up at least one fresh perspective on the production of movies, or on the world of reporting, or on the arts of the stage. Admittedly I may be a little out of touch with my friends at home, but I think at home I run into a greater interest from math and science. That's just to give a sense of how college can lead your interest into areas you hadn't quite explored before, simply by exposure to people who are constantly working in those fields.

I think the question of "knowledge" is much more complicated to explain, even though it is probably the primary reason why we think of continuing school (unless you're running away, that is). One of the biggest troubles I find with myself--perhaps you can relate--is that I constantly feel as though I know everything I need to know to get by in life. And in some respects, this is probably true, because as human beings we are very adaptable to our environments already. But I also know that, a year later, I will always have the conflicting feeling of being the exact same person but also of being completely wrong the year before.

For example: my senior year of high school, I had just read Atlas Shrugged and saw nothing wrong with a philosophy of pure rationality (Ayn Rand's Objectivism, which is in bed with political Libertarianism) that opposes anyone who propagates religion. I mentioned something about this when I first met with my dean to pick classes, and somehow didn't register the fact that he had a doctorate in religion--needless to say, I was quickly herded into a class with a religion professor so that I could prove that I had an open mind and could defend my beliefs. A year later, I won't say whether I am an atheist, but at the very least I have read enough stories (and heard enough songs--I always forget that my Music Theory teacher in high school also discouraged my anti-religious fervor) to appreciate that questions and affirmations of God have inspired some of humanity's most beautiful artwork. As for rationality, I think that anyone who depreciates their ability to feel without reason loses access to a whole side of human relationships and human history that's worth mourning.

So I've changed my mind on a few things--so what? I won't neglect my argument that college is not necessary. It provides opportunities to meet fellow students as well as professors who may inspire you and encourage you to do whatever you enjoy and believe in, and to take a second look at the things you think you understand. As long as you do not deny yourself the opportunity to learn from other people--whether you are thinking of co-workers, patrons, your family, your friends, whomever--then this is obviously not a reward you can solely gain from a non-profit institution. Next, there is the academic side. We all hate to be graded, but the pressure to do well and get a degree is a valuable incentive to read things we might otherwise not take the time to read (or, in the case of cinema and drama, to watch things we might otherwise not watch). Reading is just one way to see why the world is what it is today, and then decide which rules and ideas have good reasons for being, and which are silly and ineffective. When you consult with professors, you have the valuable advantage that they can point you to the foundational authors in a given field and often have contemporary contacts with whom they've discussed and shaped the future of that field. Therefore, a professor is a valuable source of insight if, for instance, you are interested in writing music and worry that you will one day have to imitate a Renaissance soundtrack, but are afraid that you will totally get it wrong. Your instructor can then help you find essays on the rules of Renaissance composition, and the best examples of that music, and the most interesting critiques of it. But these are all things you could find out on your own with the internet, a bookstore or library, and lots of patience.

Therefore, I suggest this: if you cannot go to college, or if you will not go to college, consider going through your life with a perpetual awareness that those of us who have gone to college are filled with bounties of useless knowledge, which we hope will one day inspire a clever musical allusion or prevent an Iraqi from insulting us with a thrown shoe. You can just as well put the same amount of work into researching an upcoming project, possibly under a very tight time frame and very little sleep (that would be a good recreation of the typical college assignment, actually), and probably produce similar results. You can also attempt to tap into all of these college zombies walking around, perhaps finding useful a friend who majored in English or History and ended up working as a secretary; such a person will likely be particularly eager to put their background to good use, so long as you give them credit where it's due.

I'm going to skip talking about college as a second home and conclude with this advice: if you don't go to college in a big city, don't sweat it. Unfortunately, I haven't entered the job market and can't speak honestly about your prospects to make money; from the documentaries I've watched, I can only leave you with the reassurance that America is not losing jobs, we are only getting different jobs which happen to have less benefits. If you do not want to work in the service center at a Wal-Mart, then you should find experience that your desired future career will be able to value, and that may take some time and human resources to figure out. But you're not missing out on too much by cutting out the fancy Harvard degree from your resume. Just a few extra snobs, considerably more people your age and older who are much nicer, and maybe a dream girl or two.

The different places you choose to spend considerable time at, from jobs to cities, are going to leave an impact on your life. You are likely to be a completely different person depending on whether you go away to school or not. If anyone is harboring any anxieties about getting left behind, however, just be sure to keep an open mind and continue to hone yourself as the most marketable person you can be, and I think you can do as well as any of us.


P.S. If I ever try to write an entire book on advice, please, don't let me. I think I have enough ego already.