A Note on Higher Education

I am about to write the least artsy and most boring thing on this blog, I think. It's an essay about school so buckle up, y'all, we're in for a wild ride.

As a college student, I often find myself wondering the same thing: Why am I college student? As someone who wants to be a writer for a living, it really doesn't have a direct impact on my ability to find a job in my intended career, because publishers don't care whether or not you have a degree in English, they care whether or not you can write a book.

So why do I do it?

Right now, I'm supposed to be writing a research paper about why Pride and Prejudice is still relevant today which, admittedly, is an interesting topic to me and I look forward to writing it. But I'm not, I'm writing this, because I'd rather be writing this. But I won't be for long. And this happens every week. I want to write short stories, or continue my NaNoWriMo novel, but I never do because I'm always writing stuff for school that's holding me back from working on what I really want to work on.

So why do I write them?

Recently I've been reading A Song of Ice and Fire or, as the TV show has made it known, Game of Thrones. If you want to write interesting genre fiction, these things are a must read. The world-building and character development is phenomenal, and they really make you relate to and invest in characters that are in situations that most of us could never fathom. But I only read two chapters, or about twenty pages, of the book every day, because I'm busy reading for Biology and English, even though I hate most of the stuff I'm reading in English this semester.

So why do I read it?

Social norms and societal/family/peer pressure is definitely part of it. And self-pressure, too. Yet there are times when I think that I'd be better off if I just spent my life learning what I wanted to learn, and reading and writing what I want to read and write, and not have to suffer through my BS math and English classes that make me want to tear my hair out weekly. And then when I think about all the debt I'm gonna be in...well, it certainly doesn't make school seem any more enticing.

But when I really think about it, I think the fact that there are classes that I don't like is part of the reason college is so important. Left to my own devices, most of my learning would be in a rather narrow field. School forces me to learn about and think about things that I may not have otherwise, and some of those may be helpful or transformative, even if I have to get through some crappy classes to get there. If not for college, I would never have taken psychology, and thus never would have gotten the idea for the novel I'm currently (not) working on, and I would never have had the fascinating discussions that I frequently did in my philosophy classes that allowed me to hear the world-views of many of my classmates. My point here is that being exposed to new things and having well-rounded knowledge is important no matter who you are or what you want to do, because you never know where life will take you, no matter how much you think you do.

If you're looking at this strictly in terms of money, however, I don't know that college is as good an investment as it used to be, depending on what you want to do. The Internet age is tearing down old paradigms, and making a living off of things like web-content is increasingly popular, and that kind of thing doesn't require a degree.

But that said, life is not an economic investment, but a personal one, and I think being well-learned and being introduced to new, interesting people is an important part of the journey. So, at the end of the day, I do think college is worth it for me, even though sometimes it makes me a little bit miserable. I wouldn't trade the friends I've made, the professors I've met, or the things I've learned for an easier road, no matter how rough it gets.

That said, though, that's just my take on it. I think that higher education is something that isn't thought about critically enough, especially among smarter individuals. Make sure it's a good investment for your money and time based on the things you want out of life before you commit to it, because everyone is different, and no two people are not on fire.