Well Rounded Institutions, the Mind and Careers

What is the good life? What is a good society? These are the “big questions” discussed by William Deresiewicz and Mark Edmundson and whether they are still being asked in college. From what I understood in their argument, is that there really is no longer room in college for the big questions. While this may be true, I personally do not believe that these big questions should be asked in college anyway. While it may not be the case for many, through my experience, these “big” questions have been asked and somewhat addressed way before I even started college. A college or university should provide students help in finding the answers that they are looking for and give them the tools and knowledge to use their education however they want to use it.

Growing up in general will give any individual some sort of idea of how they want their life to turn out. The question of what a good life or good society may not be openly discussed but not everything in life is learned from discussion. Actually, most things learned in life are learned by actually living them. Why should a college pose such questions unless they can provide multiple paths in finding the answer. Things cannot be imagined, they have to be achieved. Anyone can have an idea of their good life and anyone can simply state what a good life and society should be. However, if someone lives out their life in contrast to their believes, it just plain hypocrisy.

College is the place to discover who you are, to accept and reject certain believes, and know why. The main way for a college to pose these questions is to become a well rounded institution that has many different fields to study and the best of everything. As Deresiewicz even addressed in his article called “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”, an education should “exist to produce minds, not careers”. If your mind leads you to a career then great, but its easy for people to go to college believing that if they get a career out of their education, they learned something, which is not always the case. If people have options then, they might actually look into their options and do something with their life that fulfills their good life/society. Every person finds their own happy medium in life that they consider “good” by simply living their life.

That leads me to a topic that the professors talked about; is college merely a financial institution created to produce alumni that will become successful and donate ridiculous amounts of money, ie. The university- industrial complex. Well, it’s not a bad idea. There are more benefits to rich, successful, popular, and educated alumni, than well, college drop outs. Rich alumni most likely equal large quantities of money. How any person or institution can find fault with that is tough. But, like Deresiewicz brought up, there are those who believe that it can be a bad thing. If money is the main motivational factor for an institution, then obviously it’s a defective institution.

Wrong.

Consider how that alumni becomes successful. Of course that guy/girl could be born with savvy business intellect and incredible persuasion skills, most of the time however, they were not. They were educated to some degree at some institution that knows what its doing and has perfected their teaching to some degree. Furthermore, unless an individual is exposed to everything how can he or she know the difference between the good and bad life.

The main goal of a university should involve producing a well rounded education, that in turn would produce well rounded alumni, who most likely would become successful in some sense of the word, and being that they are successful, maybe through means of wealth, they will want to share that wealth with the wonderful institution that, well shaped them, and that means that they are providing monetary funding for what ever project it may be, and hopefully, aiding the institution in becoming a better institution, which that intelligent alumni would interpret as, well rounded and diverse. And the circle then repeats itself.

So, a person that is successful is well rounded and has had an opportunity to find what it is that they excel in. That again directs me to another point of discussion. The difference between leaders and thinkers. As defined by Deresiewicz, leaders are the individuals that make their way up the institutional pole and go along with everything in which that particular institution believes. Thinkers on the other hand are those individuals who are skeptical about what their institution has to offer and puts up certain constraints of the content that they take in.

Now, the rich alumni who donates to the school is what Deresiewicz would most likely consider a leader. The problem with this idea of “the leader” or “the thinker” is that any person can encompasses both of these “personalities”. Both the thinking aspect as well as the leader aspect should be encouraged when learning. A university is obviously going to maintain that university- industrial complex, but if they want to be a legitimate school they have to encourage both forms of thinking. Producing successful people is certainly an aspect that applicants will consider in choosing an institution of study but, I not everyone will want one position to listen to and to conform to their whole life. Opinions are based on life experiences and based on what an individual experiences, what they want out of life may change.

While I don’t think the “big” questions are necessary to establish “true teaching”, which Deresiewicz and Edmundson believe to be critical and out of the box thinking, they are bound to be asked. The guerrilla movement that was mentioned by the two is a prime example of that. True teaching, as they call it, will be taught, it just a matter of how often, by whom and, who wants to listen.