Questioning Your Degree: A Bachelor's in Perspective

Lately I've noticed that in times of crisis, others have turned to furthering their education whether it be an additional degree, diploma or certificate on a brand new area of expertise.

Thinking back to my own personal path in education, having left with over $50,000 in debt after 9 years of undergrad at two different universities, I've wondered if the path most often travelled has been the best use of nearly a decade of my life.

With expenses on books, food, school supplies and being chauffeured by public transit several hundred times, I did, for some time, joke about going for a third degree, in efforts to avoid paying back my student loan.

It's interesting how when you're in the trenches, attending lectures and tutorials, working on assignments and projects, that the cost of higher education isn't exactly top of mind. At best, part-time employment was more a stepping stone to gather experience for the next step into full-time employment after graduation.

During convocation, we are reminded (yet again) that a degree from an accredited university represents four years of hard work, struggle, time management, and sacrifice.

My university degree, as I was told in high school by parents and guidance counsellors, would provide me with the skills to enter the workforce and to give back to society. The flaw in the argument, of course, is that there are many individuals who do not have university degrees, and others who have degrees but are unable to find work or cannot afford to be a licensed professional in their area of expertise.

Does that mean individuals who are currently unemployed are unable to contribute to society? Our parents, as do most universities in North America, have told us early on in our educational career that a degree will get you somewhere. As confirmation, I look at the wall within my alma mater and find it lined with pictures of famous alumni. One day, I, too, can be a famous alumna parked next to Valerie Pringle or Eric McCormack.

But of the many things that are advertised, what isn't shown on the walls are the many thousands of inventors, scientists, writers and world leaders who do not have university degrees. Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, and George Washington never set foot in a classroom (except as professors) and yet they all single-handedly changed the course of history.

Society promotes higher education in order to "make it" in the real world, however, some of the wealthiest people in the world never made it through university. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard because it took time away from his hobby  in software developing. Steve Jobs, the face of Apple, is also a college dropout.

Despite what may seem like a blog post of a decade's worth of undergraduate cynicism, the truth of the matter is there is a fundamental difference between schooling and education. The difficulty with separating schooling and education is that somewhere down the line, the distinction between the two got blurred. Where schooling means to simply be "at school", in a controlled environment of regulated tools, means and methods of learning; education, on the other hand, is what happens outside of the classroom environment.

Education is a commitment to knowledge, and although it may take some guidance, true education is about "getting messy; making mistakes". Schooling simply teaches us how to avoid education, although we are encouraged to seek self-growth outside of the classroom, we are only rewarded for being good students, not good learners.

In my final year of university (the second time around), I was disappointed to discover many students still expected to be handheld after graduation. Apparently, someone neglected to inform these potential graduates that opportunities must be made, not given. But I hardly place the blame on the students. In many ways, the education system is designed to prolong adolescence, marks may be deducted for tardiness, late assignments are generally accepted with a 1% deduction a day, essentially conditioning students to rely on others to tell them what they can and cannot do.

Arguably, I've prolonged adolescence for nearly a decade, and although I am thankful for these small favours and have sometimes used them to my advantage, I find little value in being conditioned as a bank machine.

I lament the neglected potential of young minds not being utilized beyond its ability to withdraw information when necessary. I lament the reality of being taught how to bubble in scantrons efficiently, how to memorize definitions of obscure vocabulary verbatim, and how to respond to questions in favour of the professor's argument.

Even though we are in different times, students are still graduating where the system produced, yet again, well-conditioned machines as our society's most educated and elite. Kudos to all the caffeine-induced psychoses of our era - precursors of delirium, manic depression, schizophrenia, or merely an anxiety syndrome --we made it out alive (just barely). And here we are today, many feeling like they were left at sea without a paddle, thinking, "Gee, I could have put my $24K to better use".