this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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I mean, all it takes is a look at the cost of shit like tuition and text books to conclude college is a scam, but that doesn't equal a disrespect for the knowledge of people who've gone through it.
The difference lies in whether the speaker thinks the problem is the clearly evident financial exploitation or thinks that the education isn't valuable.
(I almost walked away from commenting on this like three times. Hopefully I made sense) I don't believe that modern college equals education, necessarily. How many corporate VPs have impressive college credentials but took nothing away more than future networking? Education is extremely valuable as is an educated society. And I get that we're talking about people who do not value the societal benefit of a well-rounded education. Schools don't seem to value it anymore either. We've commodified "knowledge". It's merely a stepping stone to better earnings. Engineering and medicine, though, are two positions I think anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together should value the quality of their educations.
I'd argue that commodification of knowledge doesn't equate to the college experience not being educational. A lot of it boils down to the individual getting out of it what they put in: I've had my share of bullshit online classes that I only took to check the prereq box, didn't give a single flying fuck about the material, gave it the absolute minimum, and finished it having gained only debt and a slightly shinier transcript. I don't remember shit from those classes other than the feeling that they were a waste of time and money.
They were fascinating to some of my classmates. And vice versa: microbiology for example was one I didn't think I'd take much out of when I was doing pre-nursing (there are way better study-of-tiny-bastard topics for pre-nursing, like clinical pathology; microbio is WAY more broad, and hit or miss in relevancy to the kind of work nurses do). Some of the topics microbio blew my fucking mind though... like did you know some bacteria have a literal fucking motor inside of them that spins their flagella around like a microscopic propeller?! Or a protein that walks along the lengths of nanotubuoles. We are stuffed with tiny, home-grown robots... and it makes my brain explode. Other pre-nursing peeps though? Couldn't give the tiniest bit of a shit about it, cuz knowing about walking proteins n' whatnot isn't useful AT ALL for nursing.
And people like to bitch about English classes, but having been on the workforce for a good couple of decades now: writing is how you advance your career. SO useful, but SO underrated and undervalued by students.
I took a criminal justice course cuz I needed an elective and the classes I wanted were all full, so... fuck it. Wrong field, didn't care, just there to check the box... walked away with a fresh appreciation for how fucked up our legal system is, and a kind of legal mindset for some non-criminal topics but turn out to be applicable.
Point is: the knowledge and education are there; whether the individual student engages with it in a meaningful way is up to the individual student. I've been on both sides of the coin, and have been surprised a few times.
Yeah say what you will I may not have gotten much out of all my classes, but as an engineer I was changed by intro to Greek and Roman culture and by intro to stand up comedy. Blow off classes to some but I loved them. I paid more attention to them than to chem which really bit me in the ass come thermo.
There are mainly 2 types of "college is a scam" people. Type 1 is anti-education and places more value on what they typically refer to as "common sense" and think that you don't need an education to know about something. They're the type most likely to think they know more than experts and argue with engineers about bridges. Type 2 is more anti-capitalist and doesn't view education as a scam itself but rather how costly that education is and the opportunities provided to educated people who paid the price is what they see as a scam. They're usually capable of recognizing and acknowledging their lack of understanding about a topic and listen to experts because they do value education, they just think access to it should be easier and cheaper and provide more tangible results for the effort put into obtaining it. This post is probably talking about type 1.
Same thing with Big Pharma. People hear that pharmaceutical companies are greedy and untrustworthy and think it means that their medicine doesn't work. It does, they just charge excessive amounts of money for it. We don't hate big pharma because vaccines don't work, we hate Big Pharma because they sell insulin at a 10,000% markup
I don’t know, finishing my engineering degree has opened up many a door to well paying careers.
My other two bachelor degrees (business and criminal justice) are completely useless.
You just need to start designing prison management systems. Problem solved.