Up to this point, you may think I'm totally incorrect. During childhood, children live in a house with their parents and are provided for with food, utilities, accommodations, a means of getting to school. When you get to college, it appears that you have less things provided to you; this actually couldn't be further from the case. When you move into a dorm, your university provides you living arrangements, necessary furniture, and covers the costs and utilities of living there just like your parents did. On top of that, you're either able to walk to your classes or provided a bus to get you there. You may have to pay for these things, but with very rare exceptions, either your parents are providing you with financial support. If they're not providing you financial support, the school you attend is probably providing you with opportunities to take out loans to pay for college.
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| Admit it; even if you love to hate the dining hall food, there's a lot of it, and it's readily available |
You're also provided for in new ways as well. Hopefully, your main goal in attending college is doing well in your classes. At Michigan, you're provided with numerous options to help you. If you have a paper that needs correcting, you can take it to the Sweetland Writing Center. There are review and study sessions for you if you want to succeed. You can go to your professor's office hours to ask questions. You can visit your GSI's office hours to ask him or her questions. Heck, the fact that you even have a GSI at all to discuss and analyze class material with you is providing you help in classes.
Do you think it stops there? It doesn't. Between studying and eating, you need friends and extracurricular activities. Once again, Michigan provides this. You can join a club on campus and meet friends through it. You can go to a party at a house that exists only because Michigan provided the education that caused people to move there. If you became friends with people in your hall, as much as having common interests helped you, the reason you probably got to know them was because they live in housing provided to them just like it was provided to you. Even aspects that you have some control over are partially provided to you by your college.
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| Don't forget the numerous libraries and study spaces the university provides for you. |
Could this potentially be dangerous? If we're being so provided for, that means we're not getting adequate opportunities to think for ourselves. We are less able to make decisions and form opinions. This could very well be why choosing a major is so difficult for so many freshman. If we've never had to tackle a minor decision like what groceries to purchase for dinner, it's going to be very difficult to tackle a major decision like discovering what concentration to major in during college.
Having all of these things taken care of for us has made us more dependent. As Kant said, because we are in a perpetual state of being provided for, we do not escape the unreasonable, basic lifestyle that we are in to become critical thinking adults. Why would we want to plan our own meals if they can just be provided for us? Why would we befriend random hobos on the street when we can talk to people our age with similar interests in clubs? It makes logical sense to follow the road of least resistance, so we do it.
This takes Kant's observations into consideration, but let's take it a step further with how college can create a general sense of misery. As Rousseau states in the second discourse, man was happy in a simple state of nature because his needs were simple; it was only when the need for profiting from nature developed that life became dangerous and man began to suffer.
This complexity is perfectly exemplified in college. Students aren't concerned with survival. They're concerned with doing well in their classes. Although some people will profit from succeeding, others will suffer due to poor grades. Grades would therefore symbolize Rousseau's perception of property. Because we use grades to gauge our abilities, when we see someone else do better than us in school, we have a desire get better grades than them. This comparable attitude causes a significant amount of stress, jealousy, and negativity to the human race. This means that instead of everyone being happy like in a State of Nature, a significant portion of people are sad.
"To succeed in life, you have to go to college" say most people giving a teenager advice about future career options. This idea isn't incorrect; to succeed in this society, going to college is a necessity. I propose, however, that college is not what young adults should strive for. It can provide a great job, but it can also be the cause of financial struggle. It can cause unneeded jealousy and stress. It can keep you in a state that prevents you from unlocking your full potential. I'm not saying that everyone should avoid college. I'm merely saying that if you don't know what you're doing, you may be hurting yourself more than you're helping.
While I think the general premise of your post is really interesting, I'm not sure I quite agree with the idea that you're asserting. I see college as a bit of a middle ground, an easing into what "real life" will be like. Yes, your housing and furniture is provided for you (at a cost), but it is now your responsibility and yours alone to go to class. In High School if you began skipping class 3 days a week, your parents would surely reverse this trend, here there is no safety net. Yes, there are dining halls to provide food - but a vast majority of people at the dining hall are Freshmen or Sophomores, hardly representative of "college as a whole," and a greater point to my "easing in" theory.
ReplyDeleteAgain, very interesting idea - loved reading the post!
This is a really thought-provoking topic as I think a lot of college students lack this kind of foresight as they go through their undergraduate education. I think it is incredibly important to apply the skills learned in college to life in the real world and I commend you for taking the time to examine your role here at this university. I agree with Brad in that I also see college as a microcosm of the real world. It gradually eases you into adult responsibilities. Moving out into the real world directly following high school is so daunting of a prospect that I believe it would cripple most students. As someone who came to college having practically no idea what I wanted to do, I found such a large university an extremely inviting place where I was able to try out different subjects and interact with different people rather than prematurely committing to a single and potentially restricting job in the real world. I think you can get the most out of college if you conceptualize it as a learning and growing process for you as an individual. Stressing on petty issues such as other students getting better grades than you is an enormous distraction from developing yourself as an adult and your goals in the future. I agree though that to ultimately get the most fulfilling experience, you do eventually have to take the initiative to get involved and try things that are not simply handed to you. However, this takes time and sometimes a little bit of guidance that the college structure adequately provides students.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I found this very interesting to read! I partially agree with what you're saying. I don't think we are babied as much in college as we were in high school, living at home. No one is going to make sure we are going to class, no one is going to make sure we got up in the morning at a reasonable time, we can eat whatever we want, etc. That being said, I do think living in the dorms definitely does not prepare one for real life, as like you said, everything is essentially provided for us. However, I think living in a house or apartment in college is a lot closer to the real world, as groceries must be shopped for, rent must be paid, and meals must be made. Many students live off campus, so I think many students get decent preparation for when they will be truly living on their own. I don't really agree with you when you say college is not what young adults should strive for. You say it can be a financial struggle, but if one doesn't go to college, then they are really likely to be in a financial struggle, especially in today's world. You say that it causes unneeded jealousy and stress, yet I think this is useful jealousy and stress, as it teaches us important lessons about competition, handwork, and prioritizing. Also, one is likely to be a lot more jealous and stressful if they are struggling because they lack a college degree. Finally, you say that college prevents you from unlocking your full potential, but I have the opposite view. I think a college education is essential to unlocking one's full potential. Although I disagreed with you on a few points, I really enjoyed your post. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this post, however, I thought that some assertions that you make are too quick to jump to a conclusion without considering other factors. For example, we, as students of the University of Michigan, made the decision to attend this university; we, as students of Political Science 101, decided to take this class this semester; many people decide who their roommates are every year; many people decide where they should live every year (with the exception of freshman year). People do not decide to be friends with hobos on the street because it is odd to do so, for one, and it can also be dangerous or simply put, a waste of time—nothing that will be conducive to your future. Moreover, choosing a major is very hard for some people because it is often seen as an indication of what path you will follow for the rest of your life, which is something that is very hard to decide at such a young age: Who knows what you will want to do twenty years from now? Otherwise, I enjoyed the parallel that you drew between grades and property. It is very true that people use grades to compare and contrast how successful they are in school. Good post overall!
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! Though your post was meant to demonstrate how, because we are so provided for, we are not making our own choices, and therefore being held back from enlightenment, it actually made me think about how privileged we are as college students. I have never really stopped to think about it; moving into a new environment, at a school like The University of Michigan, we have every opportunity and resource at our fingertips. Though the university provides these resources, I would argue that how we use them, or decide to use, or not use them, allows us to be enlightened. Take office hours as an example. Yes, this is a resource that is provided by the university, but it is the individual’s job to make the decision to utilize this resource or not, and therefore allow themselves to grow. As a freshman I never went to office hours, I wasn’t even really sure what they were, but as time went on I figured out that they were an extremely helpful tool, and am now a frequent user of this resources. Because you must make the decision to use a resource or not use it enables you to therefore become enlightened.
ReplyDeleteYour point about survival was also extremely interesting. I think that this is so true, because people are not concerned about survival, they are often concerned with more trivial things, causing a great deal of tension and anxiety in the college environment. This isn’t even necessary in regards to schoolwork, but also in everyday campus life. Tonight, my roommate was upset and complaining her SnapChat wasn’t working. She was pretty distraught. It makes me think about Rousseau’s state of nature and idea of simplicity. Is a snap chat really something to get upset about? It seems our society has come a long way from this idea of simplicity in the state of nature, and the college environment just emphasizes this.
While you might have a good point about how some kids behave in college, I think you're not representing a large group of students. Some people have to work their way through school and are financially independent from their parents. While some kids do have the luxury of living in dorms, a lot of other kids can't afford to do that in school. And there are thousands of kids who want to go to college but can't even financially manage to do so while working. A recent Huff Post article says that 42% of kids pursuing a bachelors degree fail.
ReplyDelete(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/infographic-shows-how-us-_n_1628187.html)
I think the whole perspective of this post is from a privileged place in society where you don't have to worry about most things throughout your life not just when you are at school.
I can see the connection you made between Enlightenment and college but I also find it somewhat inaccurate. To say that college doesn't make you smarter or give you any useful skills towards enlightenment is a stretch. Yes we have all of these things provided to us but we had to work to get here, and we still have to work and make hard decisions while here.
ReplyDeleteYour comparison between buying groceries and choosing a major doesn't even relate. And I don't think living and eating conditions at college are affecting our abilities to choose a major. That's why we're here, to choose a major to study. I just honestly don't see how that relates to Kant either, since he doesn't mention anything about living conditions or resources in his essay.
You get off topic towards when you talk about Rousseau and the state of nature in college because that has nothing to do with our ability to learn and make decisions in life. I can see the attempt to find the connection between Rousseau's second discourse and Emanuel Kant, but it is a weak one. Overall I have to disagree with your post because college is just a part of our journey towards enlightenment, it's where we find out who we are what we like and don't like, and where we learn from mistakes, etc. The living conditions and resources provided by the university just aid us in this process.
Very interesting post! I think its interesting how you turned the idea of gained independence in college on its head and exposed the truth behind college living – controlled chaos. We all live in a city that is considered a small utopia to most that graduate. It has everything you would need to survive, and little hardships are proposed in our collegiate living style. However, I do think you mentioned yet overlooked one of the biggest influences that college has on one’s life. When you are growing up, you have your parents over your shoulders at all times telling you what to do and when to do it. If you don’t do it, the only true consequence is your parents yelling at you and someone else picking up your slack. In college, this aspect of life is completely gone. You have no one to tell you to do your homework, no one to tell you to do your laundry, and no one to tell you to go eat. These may seem like simple things to most - and they are - but to a large amount of first year college students, making these moves on their own are their first steps to being able to think for themselves and function as an independent person in society. College is full of small steps to being an independent person, and it doesn’t happen after one semester. I would even argue it doesn’t happen after one year. Some, the unfortunate few, would argue it doesn’t happen after four.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very thought provoking post in many ways. First off, I completely agree with your viewpoint that college is certainly NOT for everybody. A lot of people just go to college simply because there is a general conception nowadays that college is, in fact, for everybody and that it is absolutely necessary in order to find success in life. This viewpoint could not be more incorrect. At the end of the day, half of the graduates end up with a degree that couldn't get them a job at McDonald's, and they simultaneously find themselves $30,000 or more in debt. This actually happened to my cousin - she was really into writing and reading so she took a lot of arbitrary philosophy and English classes. She didn't know her career path ahead of time though, so her classes didn't correspond to any major. She ended up dropping out and finding a job that didn't have much to do with what she learned in school.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I know where you're coming from when you describe a lot of people in college as being very dependent on the institution, and society in general. However I feel that there are many opportunities available in college to outgrow this sort of dependence. The most obvious example to me is research opportunities, these offer you an opportunity to expand your knowledge on your own prerogative in a form of enlightenment. However, you would probably be dictated on what topics you would study. If you graduated college and decided to take a job as a college professor, on the other hand, you could ultimately find enlightenment in the form of discovery by deciding for yourself what sort of topics your university research would entail.
Schramm000,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, and I’m glad you associated college with Kant’s conception of enlightenment. I can definitely agree with you that college is a “time that you can face a sense of immaturity and dependence.” Students aren’t under their parents’ roof anymore, and it’s left up to us to decide how much we want to get out of our 4-year undergraduate experience. Michigan has an overabundance of resources to help students succeed -- it just happens that way the minute you step onto this campus. It’s reassuring that Michigan has our backs in succeeding, but you spun this idea in a new way -- “If we’re being so provided for, that means we’re not getting adequate opportunities to think for ourselves.” Everybody assumes you gain dependence in college, but your point is a valid one that now questions how I view college. Don’t get me wrong -- the resources are amazing, and I don’t know what students would do without them. But, everyone is caught up in this bubble called the University of Michigan -- we strive for good grades by taking classes that fulfill graduate requirements. We’re so caught up in graduating on time and successfully, that we sometimes find ourselves passively going through the actions of achieving this. But what if we are getting held back in our potential to do something great because we are so focused on this thing called college? Everyone views college differently. College works out for a lot of people; others drop-out and go their own ways. Great mind-stimulating post!
Interesting read!
ReplyDeleteI see what you are trying to convey with your posts and you put up a fantastic argument, but I just do not agree. I feel that in college, especially at the University of Michigan, people are forced to become less dependent and are more able to develop than in pre-collegiate life. Before college, as you stated, everything was laid out for us by our parents and other institutions, but in college, I feel that people have to be go-getters and have to do stuff for themselves. Before college, I seldom ran errands, did my laundry, had to travel for group projects, among other simple, yet essential tasks. I constantly find myself running errands to supply myself with the things that my parents and the university have not provided me with, spending my money that I earned over the past three summers. I have to do my own laundry, which is a task I've always overlooked and it is honestly essential for prospering socially. I have to take busses to meet up with kids for group projects, rather than walking a few blocks. The University of Michigan offers students some support, but leaves a lot for us to do on our own, creating a environment less dependent that living with our parents, yet more dependent than what we will experience in our post-collegiate careers. I creates a sort of middle group that is essential to our development.
Ben