Response to How the American University was Killed.

http://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/

 

College is pushed HARD to high school students, and they start being pushed when they are in junior high – if not younger. I admit that I am a pusher of college as well. Can you get a job with out a college degree? Yes. Can you start a business and succeed without a college degree? Yes. Does a college degree help? Yes, there is usually no question about it. I also agree that college isn’t for everyone, and you really need to have the right college for you. I spent a year and a lot of money at the WRONG college, studying for the WRONG degree for me.

As I read this article I began see how these concepts have played out in my own degree. As an undergrad I had an advisor that didn’t know a thing about my degree which he was advising me on. He didn’t know which classes I needed to take, in which order – and neither did I! It was extremely frustrating to have to try to navigate the system without a guide. Was it my advisor’s fault? No. He was micromanaged into that position. As a graduate student my education has been inconsistent. I really hate to say it, but my graduate degree has been heavy in busy work and light on rigor. I’ve written only one ‘academia’ paper, and that was my first class. One summer I took two online courses. The teachers were from out of town, and husband and wife. I only saw them one time. The works was submitted as a portfolio at the end of the semester and two weeks after grades were due, and there were thirty people in each class. I wrote 62 papers in 6 weeks. Do I think those teachers read more than 30 sentences of the 1.860 papers that were turned into them that summer? No.. no I do not. And these were education classes – teaching me how to be a better teacher! It’s been frustrating and exhausting.

I didn’t know that teachers at the university level were paid so little. I was actually taken aback by this. If I’m making x amount teaching high school, you think that the amount teaching at a higher learning institute would be higher. You have to have more education and more experience – but you get paid less? Who comes up with these ideas?

Apparently it is ‘the man’. The author of this article had an interesting spin on how colleges and universities were once the place to question things and challenge preconceived notions of the way our society is ran. Now these universities have become extremely expensive trade schools ran on corporate money. Did I mention these institutions were expensive?

I wish that this article would have touched more on some possible solutions. I appreciate that his injustice was pointed out to me, but now what? I guess that’s up to me.