College is Not for Everyone
Today, more people than ever are attending community colleges and universities. Often, a collegiate degree is a prerequisite to meaningful employment (Pincus, 341). There is even social pressure pushing many to attend. I feel that the university education system has many structural shortcomings, and that institutions of higher learning often do not have students ' best interests at heart. I feel, simply, that college is not for everyone. An opportunity for some, the very structure of a collegiate education is a pitfall for many others. Consider the time-frame a college freshman faces at an undergraduate university. The majority of these young men and women enter college as just that: young. The average age of a freshman 18. Yet at this point they are expected to know what exactly they wish to study for the rest of their lives. Author and social scientist Virginia Gordon, in her study entitled "The Undecided Student", states her belief that the majority of young college students do not know definitively what they chose to study. It is to Gordon in fact entirely regular, from a developmental perspective, that someone might not know …show more content…
For many college students, obtaining a degree carries with it the guarantee of employment. To be young is to be idealistic. Many students chose a path of study believing it will guarantee them employment, yet a degree in art history is nowhere near as applicable as a degree in law or medicine. Students should be culpable for their own choices, but I believe that the college education system often presents all areas of study with a sort of romanticism; it seems to say that, with the right amount of hard work and dedication, you can make a successful career out of any major. For many people, this simply is not
Today, more people than ever are attending community colleges and universities. Often, a collegiate degree is a prerequisite to meaningful employment (Pincus, 341). There is even social pressure pushing many to attend. I feel that the university education system has many structural shortcomings, and that institutions of higher learning often do not have students ' best interests at heart. I feel, simply, that college is not for everyone. An opportunity for some, the very structure of a collegiate education is a pitfall for many others. Consider the time-frame a college freshman faces at an undergraduate university. The majority of these young men and women enter college as just that: young. The average age of a freshman 18. Yet at this point they are expected to know what exactly they wish to study for the rest of their lives. Author and social scientist Virginia Gordon, in her study entitled "The Undecided Student", states her belief that the majority of young college students do not know definitively what they chose to study. It is to Gordon in fact entirely regular, from a developmental perspective, that someone might not know …show more content…
For many college students, obtaining a degree carries with it the guarantee of employment. To be young is to be idealistic. Many students chose a path of study believing it will guarantee them employment, yet a degree in art history is nowhere near as applicable as a degree in law or medicine. Students should be culpable for their own choices, but I believe that the college education system often presents all areas of study with a sort of romanticism; it seems to say that, with the right amount of hard work and dedication, you can make a successful career out of any major. For many people, this simply is not