When I was younger I always believed that growing up would be a great experience. I was eager to become an adult, to explore the perfect world seen in all the movies and T.V. shows I had seen. I wanted to go to work, to make money, to get started on life as early as I possibly could. Little did I know that when you are twelve-years-old you do not know know everything in the entire world.
I’ve had the dream of finishing high school with a 4.0 GPA and going on to a fancy, expensive university for a very long time. I’ve always wanted to go on to do better things than the the rest of family, which mostly consists of factory workers and and other small-time jobs. When I was very young I aspired to be a fireman, just like any seven-year-old boy should. After that I wanted to be a writer, then a teacher, and finally a lawyer. My most recent venture into Careerland has been game development, a choice I’ve stuck with for the past three or so years. I like playing games and I like making them even more.
The be a successful game programmer there are a vast amount of topics one must fully understand. They range from problem solving to calculus and from logic to wizardry. Typically, these attributes are the result of a major in Computer Science. So recently I’ve been rummaging through propaganda from various no-name colleges and universities and googling several others. On this voyage I am to an amazing realization that I was completely unaware of until now: getting an education sucks.
Now, let’s clarify. Education itself is a wonderful thing. Knowledge is power and it is important that one soaks in every drop of information he or she is exposed to. There is no point in life if you don’t take advantage of everything this world has to offer. Without knowledge and experience, our lives would be meaningless.
Of course, that’s why colleges and universities exist: to educate the future generations of the world. And I think that as the first schools were created they honored this intent. However, at this point in time I feel that their current motives are much less pure.
So here are list of things that the process of getting an education has showed me.
- Schools only care about money — In this world money controls everything. The rich are the powerful and the rich are never fair. Schools look for candidates that will make them the most money. The schools who cater to the rich will only ever cater to the rich. Schools like MIT and Harvard charge insane amount of money for a “better” education. If education is so important, why make a better learning environment available only to the people that can afford it, rather than the people who deserve it? Surely enough, the phrase “you get what you pay for” comes to mind in situations like this. But how can you put a price on knowledge? How can education be sacrificed to our material value systems? How can a dollar be traded for facts?
- The government only cares about money — As an underage citizen my purpose can be summed up very easily: learn enough to be able to pay your taxes in order to protect the country’s income. It doesn’t matter what I learn, what major I proceed with, or what title I carry. If I am not making any money, I am worthless to the government, and essentially the world.
- Schools are superficial — My guidance councilor has stressed on multiple occasions that I need extracurricular activities. She thinks that I should join a sports team or a club. She has even tried to list a bunch of them that she thought I would like. The list was long, but a few of my favorites were: computer club, writing club, football, or DECA. First off, I don’t like playing organized sports, for various reasons. Second, school clubs are a joke. Clubs exist to appease colleges’ and universities’ requirement for the oh so important extracurricular activities. I’ve flirted with the idea of joining a club several times. However, my final verdict remains unchanged. Clubs are made for superficial people who want have the club on their resume for a superficial school to look at. The way I see it, if I don’t like something and it doesn’t appeal to me then the sole fact that a school will like it is not enough for me to join a club I have no interest in.
- Standardized tests suck — The idea that a single aptitude test is enough to determine the fate of someone’s academic career is preposterous. This world is comprised of so many different, unique people that it is pure insanity to think that a single test is enough to decide if someone should be accepted into a school. Some people aren’t very good test takers and judging there potential based on a score on a test could be detrimental to their future. If a single test is enough to disqualify me as a candidate to my preferred school than maybe that school isn’t for me. Standards are great things, they allow a single way for similar things to be represented, analyzed, and interpreted. Unfortunately, the human mind is not a data protocol and shouldn’t be treated as such.
I’m sure as my search continues I will run into even more issues with my future that I can scrutinize, but I guess that only time will tell.
-Julius Parishy