The Metaphysics of Student Life, Part One

So . . . today is the first day of classes at my university.  Though I'm not back in the classroom until next week, I thought I would finish the week with a couple of posts about university, teaching, and higher learning (not the movie - there's not much to say beyond the fact that Busta Rhymes was da bomb).  Today I'm going to discuss that fundamental question of student existence - where's the bar with cheap beer and hot townies?  No, not that one, this one: why am I here?

I must say that in thinking about this post I discovered that I am a hypocrite.  This is not something I aspired to be - it just worked out that way.  You see, when I teach students how to analyze a case (itself the topic of tomorrow's post), I tell them not to undertake any activity unless they can clearly see how it contributes to the overall solution.  In other words, don't waste you're time doing something if you don't know why you're doing it.

But when it comes to university, I have given out the exact opposite advice.  If a high school student, nearing graduation, were to ask me whether they should go to university even if they don't know what they want to do with their lives, I would probably waffle but come down on the side of enrolment.  I'm not a big believer in taking a year or two off to find one's self; first of all, people travel awfully far to find themselves.  Second, II believe that such discoveries, like most discoveries in our lives, occur when they are going to occur (somewhat randomly), and not because you are backpacking across Slovenia with your new best friend that you just met.

Furthermore, I myself went to university to pursue a degree in film, primarily because I love movies and I thought making them would be cool.  The primary thing I learned in film school is that I don't enjoy being on film sets.  I still have an interest in the industry, but not as a career option.  It certainly didn't help that the first week I was there, I went to buy a television and the salesperson who assisted me was a graduate from my exact program five years earlier.  Well, that's what I get for attending DeVRyerson.

And finally, to mess you up completely and compound my flip-flopping beyond belief, I firmly believe that it has become too common a default that high school students automatically look to university as their only option.  The world doesn't need that many general arts majors.  Heck, the world probably doesn't need that many business majors, but at least employers, rightly or wrongly, see more value in that degree.  I have seen many, many students who have no business being a university student, and not for the reasons you may think.  It's not that they are stupid, or lazy, or in the wrong program (which is not to say those students don't exist).  It's that they have no intention of using their degree for any future purpose.  As I have written before, if you are financially secure, get as many degrees as you want.  If you are looking at university as a means to an end, which most students are, use that means in a productive way.

I would be more than happy to have seen a lot of my students enrol in trades or gotten jobs right out of high school (and not only because they wouldn't be my problem).  For them (not you, student reader, you are brilliant and a fantastic learner) this is a more efficient use of their time.  How to solve this problem in a practical way?  How about on the first day of classes, each student must convince a university official that they know why they are there.  Other than, of course, for the parties and new facebook contacts.