People no longer want education, they want profession.
Why do I go to college?
To learn?
Nice guess.
To challenge myself?
Not today.
To way lay the fateful but inevitable union of myself and the so called “real world”?
Getting closer.
I go to the University and get a four year degree so that I can get a job. (Or, at least I try to graduate in four years. The list of requirements gets longer as universities try to keep you and your parent’s pocketbooks and/or subsidized/unsubsidized loans in school).
Yip-fuckin-eee!
College is to Job, as Binoculars are to Voyeurism. Basically,college has become a means to an end. A tool for a trade.
Why don’t we just call the universities what they are? Votec.
A co-worker said this the other day and, I gotta say, it seems far from fallacious. Really, this idea has been right there the entire time, I just didn’t see it. People have been telling me as early as middle school to “Make good grades, graduate, go to college, graduate, get a job . . . die (which is, basically, graduating from life).” Okay, they don’t usually include the die part, I’m just filling in the blanks. But, the point is, all of us are told to go to school to get a job. Period. Why don’t they just tell us to join a guild, learn a trade? We’re not “Educated,” we’re “Artisans.” On the other “hand,” we do like our “pot/s” (Bad joke. There’s a little artisan/craftsman/college student humor for ya)
Apparently, I’m one of the few students who actually wants an education for educational purposes. I am strange because I accept education for what it is. I don’t want to use it to get a job. I just want to make other people feel stupid and inferior. (Is this a pretentious statement. . . yes. Do I care? Of course not, I’m pretentious. . .
.)
Okay, (I’m kind of kidding about the stupid and inferior) there are probably more than a few students who WANT an education. . . maybe like five. But, the thing is, I don’t even need a degree. The “professional” field I want to get into doesn’t require one. I just thought “Hey! Let’s go to college, get inspired, pretend to have some original thoughts, maybe ascertain some original thoughts in the process of processing other famous people’s original thoughts, and…I don’t know…learn something in the process.”
Who knows, on my way to attaining that off-white, non-recyclable, ink embossed certification, it could happen. The learning I mean.
What happened to getting a degree “just because?”
Was this idea never a reality?
What if I said, “Maybe I’ll get a masters some day.” Would that be crazy? Because I wouldn’t be getting it because I needed it. At least I wouldn’t need it in a financial way. (There are other needs, but they appear to be becoming less important in this time of economic duress).
“Why would I want to do such a thing?” you may ask. (Besides the fact that I’m pretentious).
You bring up a good argument, even though it was just a question. I don’t “need” it, and I can’t pay for it without help. After all, Mom and Dad won’t dish the dough for my college forever. Four years and they’re quits. They’ve got to save up for that shack on the beach. The only reason they’ve invested in me thus far is so that I can turn that shack into a condo one day with my handsome Bachelors (both of them), and provide them with their very own Swedish nursemaid named Hildi who will treat them right and divvy up the oxygen tanks equally and according to need.
But… where was I? Ah yes, Education! I can’t just go to school and get a Masters because I want to. It’s expensive. I’ve got to have a plan. My Masters needs to be not only educational, but profitable. I can’t just go get one because I want people to call me Master. Although it would have lasting entertainment value, it is lacking monetary value.
Education. . . Forget it I say! (At least the kind you pay for) And I mean this in the most facetious way possible.
I want to go on this summer trip, right. I want to go to one of THE most PRESTIGIOUS universities in the WORLD, not just in the US, but in the WORLD. (Sorry about all the caps, or CAPS if you like, I got a little carried away) But in order to take this “little” trip, I’ll probably need to take out a loan.
The thing is, I’ve never had to take out a loan before. I know nothing of this “Loan Business” (And it is a business). Apparently, I’m spoiled. I’ve been sitting in the fridge all this time thinking I was fresh and new, but really I was fooling myself. I’m spoiled rotten. I’ve got goo for insides. It’s all mush, puss, mold, and moist salmonella seeping, oozing, and pooing from my insides to my outsides! (You take away the caps, you get exclamation points instead… I would apologize, but it’s probably going to happen again)!!!
I never knew, really knew, nor had to deal with the bitch that is interest rates. Why 6.8%? Why not 6.66%? I mean wouldn’t that be more appropriate? It is the devil’s beeper number, after all. Just call it and make a deal to pay off the bastard for the next ten years of your adult life while you work your way up through that “profession” that you went to school to get; that “profession” that doesn’t pay you enough to make your student loan payments because you, like everybody else at your job, only have a bachelor’s degree.
If you wanted a better paying job you should have gotten a master’s. Then you could spend the next 20 years of your life (instead of the Bachelor 10) paying students loans. Thankfully, your precious income has increased in conjunction with your interest rates. It’s comforting to know that by the time you are approximately 42-48 years old that you will finally be debt free. Or, at least you can stop worrying about the student loans and start paying off your credit cards and the mortgage on your home, which you had to take out because of debt that followed you from that special place of education, College.
I knew nothing of loans, nothing of interest rats, rates, whatever. Does any of it make any sense or, I don’t know, cents?
You have to spend money to make money. You have to make money to repay the money you spent. Unless, of course, you decide to do the pay-as-you-go plan. You pay for college as you go, but, like it’s analogous counterpart, the cell phone plan, you get less minutes (less hours) and none of the perks (no keggers, no friends, just responsibility).
Ah well. I would continue this rant but I’m about to pass out. I think student loans, finance, and interest rates may be the sleep aid I’ve been looking for to revamp my skewed sleeping schedule.
Until next time my debt-ed, yet educated, friends.
Good night.