I look around in my classes sometimes and think, “How did some of these people make it to college?” Sure, the occasional forgetting of a word or spelling is understandable, but some people do not even know how to form a sentence. In this generation, college is like high school 2.0. It’s expected for you to go to college after high school; a college degree has become almost the equivalent of a high school diploma.
Now, a bachelor’s degree is nothing special; it’s what you have done beyond that that really matters. Perhaps we can blame the less rigorous high school cirriculum for this. There seems to be so much repetition in regards to high school and college. Couldn’t some of this be eliminated?
It’s ludicrous to think that students should have to take the same course twice if they have no interest or future use for that material. Sure, it is beneficial to learn the information initially, but if it’s just going to be forgotten after the class ends, how many times should it be learned?
One of the problems our society faces is that it is expected to go to college after high school. College isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t enjoy the world of academia.
There are plenty of jobs available that do not require a degree but rather require some sort of training or certification. This is not to say that people who want a further education should not be able to learn, but it is to say that not everyone should be expected to excel in the rigors of university life.
It didn’t use to be like this. Only recently has it become somewhat of an obligation or expectation for a high school graduate to attend college.
Again, maybe this is because of the lax education students receive before high school completion. High school students have been babied more and more, and now college has started to do the same. America has tried to create this illusion that all Americans are smart, ambitious and able to achieve their dreams.
However, people are born with different gifts, goals and ways of thinking; it is impossible to shove every American into an idealistic mold.
 
Wendy Morell is the opinion editor of the Reflector. She can be contacted at
[email protected].