So here we are at college, a place where life studies and intellectual studies are supposed to collide in a supernova of experience, change and growth. However, as I look around, I can’t help but be startled at the amount of voluntary stupidity, general complacency and cultural ignorance. How many times have you said or heard someone say that a bachelor’s degree is becoming the same as a high school diploma? Well, I can’t help but wonder why, and instead of shifting the blame to someone outside of the college sphere of influence, e.g., the corporate world, consider that it is college students who bring this upon themselves. Wow, that’s something different, isn’t it? Someone in this country actually placing the blame, at least partially, upon himself.
The one thing college needs most is to realize exactly what its priorities are. Which is worse: a college where a few students are voluntarily involved with a magazine that constantly shunned by people who have never even seen a single copy, but has students so dedicated to their work that they find a cure for cancer? Or a college known for wholesome family values, where 60 percent of its students go on to become successful grocery store managers?
Why is it that colleges are lowering their standards to allow more people in, while raising the cost of tuition so that students must go into debt just to receive higher education? If we are truly here to receive the best education possible, why is it that more people are concerned with what brand-name shirt they’re wearing, instead of what the poverty level is in this region? There is a certain level of responsibility and engagement with the community that many colleges don’t even recognize, and I’m not talking about giving money to people who already have enough and passing inane laws.
I pose a simple problem and a simple solution. If you want a bachelor’s degree to mean something, care more about what you’re learning, rather than if you’ll get that new North Face jacket. College used to be about educating so that the world could be changed for the better, but now it seems like only four years of partying as a prerequisite to entering real life. So take a long hard look in the mirror and realize that “Lost” sucks, North Face is out of style and ignorance is not bliss.