What is college for? I don’t know for sure how most college students would respond to this question, but from my conversations and other interactions with hundreds of fellow students, I’m going to posit that the majority view college as a sort of prerequisite to the life they want to live. Or in other words, it’s a period of life one must pass through in order to get to where you really want to go.
If students think that college is just a prerequisite to the kind of life they want to live, they will likely treat it the way they treat academic prerequisites: Put as little time and effort into it as possible and pay attention only to what they think will be useful later on, thereby freeing up time to have fun. It’s a pragmatist view of education and knowledge that winnows the college experience down to the things that are applicable or pleasurable.
Reducing college to learning and doing only the things that are applicable to a future career or that are pleasurable in the moment robs both individuals and their communities. This view of college leads to people spending the time of their life when they are most energetic, idealistic and available on things that don’t develop themselves positively or impact others for good.
In this mindset, all school is divided into what might be useful in your future career and what won’t be — and is therefore a waste of time. Read "Numbers Game," an article on page 45 of the winter Garnet & Black issue, to see what I mean. This way of thinking denies that some knowledge is worth knowing for its own sake, independent of "real-world application," which both devalues the humanities and makes school a lot less enjoyable.
The applicability/pleasure test extends to students’ personal lives. In my own life, I felt for a long time that my activities had to fall under either the "productive" or "enjoyable" category for them to be worthwhile, which made it difficult for me to do things like reading dense but supposedly edifying books or sticking it out in not-so-fun conversations for the sake of a relationship.
Adopting this kind of mindset ultimately causes students to settle for easy rather than worthwhile things. It’s easier to scroll through Instagram than to tackle Homer or Shakespeare. It’s easier to huddle with people who share your age, race, sex, nationality or interests than to get to know people who are unlike you. It’s easier to slide into your comfort zone in a student organization than to take on a leadership role. Yet in these instances, and countless more like them, the easier thing is less worthwhile.
I believe that due to this modern perception of college, we are seeing an entire demographic turn in on itself and become preoccupied with its own concerns. In their relationship with society, most college students are takers, not contributors. And that’s fine, up to a point. Transitioning from being dependent and relying on others to meet your needs, to becoming independent and meeting the needs of yourself and others, is the normal trajectory of growing up. But it needs to be a transition, a gradual taking on of responsibilities and development of skills. Trying to put off the responsibilities and difficulties of adulthood for as long as possible to have the most fun now is what is causing this generation to become so self-absorbed.
To solve this problem, I propose that we come to see college as a formative experience helping to mold us into the kind of people we want to be. But what will this new view of college look like in practice?
It’s investing your leisure time in culture, past and present, not the here-today-gone-tomorrow evanescence of social media, getting to know and love your city beyond the campus and the bar scene and beginning to give back through community involvement and service. If you’re religious, or maybe even if you’re not, it’s attending a house of worship where people of all backgrounds and stages of life mix. It means seeking out leadership roles in your student organizations, or if they’re taken, joining smaller ones or starting your own. There are almost infinite opportunities, varying proportionally with the complexity and diversity of our personalities, for each of us to move beyond the bubbles of ourselves and the people and places we are comfortable with and into the realm of challenge and growth.
I think it’s time that we reclaim college as a time not to live it up while you can or take the path of least resistance but to grow as individuals and contribute to our community.