more thoughts re: yesterday afternoon's post

[lauralh]

So let's move forward to the premise that college is bad, because it encourages a culture of excess. Either you meet and fuck a shitton of people, or you drink too much, or drop too much acid, or just overdose on drama. And if you ain't doing any of that, you're probably working way too fucking hard on classes. There are very few careers where you have to pull all-nighters, ever.

But then again, it probably goes back to high school. The reason people explode in college is because their whole life up to that point, they've had to fucking ask permission to go to the fucking bathroom. Freedom is fun! and scary.

Something needs to be done. But not for me, I'm over it, I work for a living.

Comments

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I have always thought Junior High and much of High school was pointless and kids could be doing better things with their time like learning how to be independent human beings. This whole "asking permission to pee" thing does nothing but set the stage for excess. No one knows how to handle themselves when they get to college at that age. This is why people do things like eat nothing but french fries and cherry coke for three meals a day, fuck boring people and such.

Maybe we should do what they do in some cultures and send kids on walk-abouts or something. Make them work for awhile instead of spending time in graphic arts class making 4:20 t-shirts.

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

In my business, the only positions that I look for a bachelor degree in are those which are administrative/maintenance positions (ones where I don't want a lot of critical thinking or rocking of the boat). People who have bachelor degrees, as a whole, tend to be more willing to jump through bullshit hoops in order to meet cultural/social expectations. They are easier to manage and tend to cause less "problems".

Conersely, I hire people more like myself when I need people who will take risks, challenge the status quo or promote growth/change.

Naturally, companies never hire people like me if they want stability.

Microsoft has a similar hiring ethic. Microsoft's reward (and requirement) for degrees has been directly related to their need for stabilization.

[bewing.livejournal.com]

Someone has to be the legal guardian of kids, until they become independent. In our society, it has been chosen that parents are the ones. They usually take this duty to unfortunate extremes, and try to "instill their own values in their kids", etc.
So, there has to be a point where the legal guardians are FORCED to finally let go.
So, logically at that point, there has to be an arena where kids can truly learn independence. Work is not independence, so I don't accept your solution. College is it. I'm satisfied with our setup. Learning what it is to be free is valuable, so I reject your initial hypothesis.