Entry 3

College: A single-function device

After watching Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, “Bring on the Revolution,” a thought struck me that had briefly brushed my conscience before, but had never deeply penetrated my thoughts. It’s one of those moments where one feels as if they may get their hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar for even considering a possibility so heinous. My thought was this: could college be outdated? The more I reflect on my life thus far, and the more I look at the world around me, the more I become convinced that it might be so. The breadth of experiences I’ve had, versus many of my peers who went straight to college and emerged almost as naïve as they were going in, provides for me further implication that perhaps college is less than everything we were told it was intended to be. With information at one’s fingertips, it seems far more likely that attending  college and receiving a degree serve more as a statement of class, much less a statement of knowledge.

What really hit this notion home was Robinson’s referral of the theory of “Linear Education." I can remember preparing for college years before actually attending any institution; I recall tests, college tours, extracurricular activities, and even whole classes on how to apply to college and how to succeed once there. It seems as though my entire lower education was for the sole purpose of entering college, rather than for the sole purpose of developing me as a free-thinking human being.

I’m leaving this entry feeling bitter, skeptical, and disenchanted.