For decades, most of us have been laboring under a great lie — that college is the key to a successful life. Some of you have shared this similar experience — when we were in school, and when some difficult topic was being taught — usually some math stuff like quadratic equations or trigonometric functions — some smartass kid would invariably ask, “Why are we learning all this? Is this useful for life?”
And some of us would have gotten the answer, “Oh, you’re going to encounter this in college so you better prepare for it now.”
We live under this assumption that “Of course, you have to go to college. Do you want to be a dumb tambay who can’t get a job?” We were brainwashed to expect to go to college to learn what we needed for our life’s career, and we pass on the same expectations to our children.
But look around and open your eyes to reality. There are plenty of people in successful careers that are very different from what they took in college. A friend of mine took up nursing but now teaches music and arts. Another is a doctor of physics but is happy selling anime toys online.
I am not saying that college is useless. Far from it. Of course, plenty of people have also built successful and meaningful careers out of what they studied in college, and I have my share of those friends as well — doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers and so on.
The lie that I am pointing out is that college has had a bloated sense of self-importance, that those who finish college are somewhat better than those who have not, that those who go to college are somehow better off than those who go to vocational, technical or trade schools.
This lie has produced a backlash in the US. An article entitled “After decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, US needs more tradespeople,” by Matt Krupnick, cites worker shortages in many fields of trade. He writes, “so much effort has been put into encouraging high school graduates to go for academic degrees rather than for training in industrial and other trades that many fields like this face worker shortages.”
People are different from each other and have varying fields of interest and pleasure. Some find fulfillment in intellectual work, while others like working with their hands. Some like to argue and debate, while others like to churn out words in silence. Some create software that powers huge corporations and others are content to style people’s hair or to give soothing massages.
No one of these is more important than the other, but must work harmoniously, and be understood as all part of a giant ecosystem that we call humanity.
Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.