A non official reminder to stay on topic. If folks want to start a conversation about degrees leading to business school, please start a new thread.
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Hereās the official reminder.
As is always the case, posts not in compliance are subject to deletion without notice
Hopefully students build some exercise āleisureā time into their schedules, because America is getting more and more obese.
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I think the author knows that but the point is that college can be a unique experience for those types of pursuits. It is one of the few places where you have people whom you donāt know, with different view points, in one place and one time to be able to have discussions about different subjects.
Itās the intellectual stimulation of a good book club but you donāt have to look for membersāthey are already present and the moderator (hopefully) is a trained person to lead the discussion. If you go to the discussion looking at it as a ājobā or āhurdle to your goalā you lose the whole point of the discussion which is to hopefully expand your mind and broaden your horizensāto think about things bigger than yourself.
Colleges usually bring speakers, events, art, plays etc. to campus. Those are āleisureā and hopefully students donāt just only focus on passing an exam (job) but take time to expand their horizons (leisure) and take advantage of that unique setting.
There are other unique opportunities that only college settings provide that may never come againāmarching band at the football game, team sports of all kinds, clubs of every type (and competitions). Fraternities/sororities. The chance to take courses in physical sports that youāve never had a chance to even try. (all available if you put down your phone game/social media long enough to go try them out).
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US mandatory military service was not universal in the decade leading up to the change to all volunteers. Only some were required to serve, and the process for determining who was required was widely seen as unfair (e.g. college deferments, medical diagnoses more accessible to scions of wealth). So any societal benefits of it being universal were not accrued.
There was a time in American history when that was the entire purpose of āgoing to collegeā. Certainly, no one needed a college degree to pursue business in the early part of the 20th Century. The popular culture of the time reflects this; that Joe So-and-so was āa college manā was often a source of bemusement, but by no means was his degree considered essential to the mission of the company. Or, take the case of the Scarecrow in āThe Wizard of Ozā (1939); his self-effacement at not having āa brainā belied what was probably a lifetime of ālearning for its own sakeā for which the Wizard aptly awarded a college diploma.
Thereās also another NYTimeās piece this morning which sort of stumbles on its own lead:
Economists have a term for the gap that exists between the incomes of college graduates and high school graduates: the college wage premium. It reflects the relative demand in the labor market for college-educated workers. When employers want more college graduates, the premium goes up; when there is a surplus of college grads, the premium goes down. After World War II, the G.I. Bill flooded the American labor market with college diplomas, and for a few decades, the gap between the median income of high school graduates and that of college graduates remained pretty narrow; having a college degree produced an income boost of 30 percent or so. Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault Is That? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
IOW, the returning GIs of our grandparentsā generation werenāt necessarily pursuing higher wages by going to college. They wanted to leave farm work behind; they wanted to get off the factory floor. They wanted jobs that required ābrainsā.
The last thing I wanted for my two students was to get a career they disliked or only get one just to payoff student loans. I really hope they find something they really like to do. I know work is work but at least enjoy some of it. Hopefully most of it.
I wanted them to get outside of their bubble while at college. Since we donāt have $50-70K a year to spend on that we made sure they were in great positions to get some merit and finish with no loans. One is done and off to a Masters program that is free with 3 yr obligation after a year. The other is has a full ride and came in with 39 credits. She literally can do anything she wants for 4 years. It will be so interesting to see what she ends up doing.
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I told our daughter that HIGH-SCHOOL was her job!
(as in: if you put in all these crazy hours, before/after school, late @ night, and weekends to be prepared for classes and get good results - then I donāt want/need you to figure out how to substitute that time with hours spent at some minimum wage BK or McD job for pocket money).
I wouldnāt call college āleisure timeā in the sense that most might interpret that headline:
not taking classes, or not doing the necessary class work.
But I certainly think itās the time when these young adults should starting figuring out their own healthy/healthier life/work balance, than the first 18 over-scheduled years up to and including high school.
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True. That said, the first 18 years of life donāt need to be overscheduled. My kids werenāt overscheduled and have done well. D has a good job and she works hard, but she has plenty of leisure time and isnāt a slave to her job. She does have friends who were very overscheduled in high school and they seem burned out nowā¦or they were overscheduled and they are just go go go all the time, in both their work and social lifeā¦
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