…even though it’s important to graduate with a respectable GPA.
However, everyone is different when it comes to their own college experience, which means that there’s nothing wrong with focusing more on academics, despite being told that you should have a healthy balance between work and play at college.
Agree and disagree. I think colleges should be all about academics, but that a person’s college years should not be just about academics. In other words I think that the years from 18-22 should be about many things including socializing, having fun, being exposed to new ideas, taking risks, “finding yourself”, dating, learning to “adult” etc. I believe these goals are just as important as academics. At the same time, I wish that colleges in the United States would focus more narrowly on academics. I feel that colleges here are trying to do so much that they may end up doing nothing well (and the costs are too high.) I prefer the European model where college tuition is cheap and buys high quality academics but not much else. European university students still end up doing all the rest, but the University doesn’t engineer it for them.
Academics matter. For grad school. Getting/qualifying for a job and more. Academics are most important, by far.
But the college experience is and should be about so much more. Friends. Independence. Growing. Participating. Experimenting…take that as you decipher in your own way.
My son has done little but school. He’s done a few clubs occasionally. But he is growing…cooks all his meals, has to do laundry.
My daughter has started a club at her school to help afghan refugees. She has multiple faculty sponsors and over 50 students involved. Plus is Greek, etc.
She is taking full advantage non academically and really just displaying the leadership cred we always knew she had.
But as I tell her daily or weekly…. Still gotta keep pace with school…that’s why you are there.
But I do agree it’s not just about school. Otherwise go to a community college and live home.
The US actually had most of that once upon a time…until the idea of taxpayers funding universities became anathema (started in the late '70s but really took off with the Republican Revolution of the '80s). The UC system back in its hay day and the Land Grant colleges in particular stood out. It was a deliberate decision to switch from taxpayer subsidies to a for-profit loan-making structure.