There’s a time and a place for everything; it’s called college. I loved college. Well, what I remember of it anyway … Even though I never graduated, I owe quite a bit of my ken to those formative years. Like many college students, I had to work to pay my bills while I was in school, and when I realized the point of going to classes was to get a job, which I already had, I quit going to class but kept going to my job. I still hung out with my friends, lived with roommates and enjoyed the “college experience.” But in hindsight, I wish I’d studied a trade like mechanics or plumbing — some kind of skill that will always be in demand.
Of course I am an advocate for education, and I think it should be available to any/everyone who wants to learn, but taking on massive debt to pay for a degree in a field that’ll probably be overrun by AI seems rather hopeless. (Speaking of hopelessness, you’d think the hippie generation would forgive student loans before corporate larceny.)
Remember the good ole days: smoking grass in the sun, listening to unknown music while wearing cut-offs, protesting the actions of our government … Oh snap! College students are protesting the war-is-big-business model right now. And guess what? They’re right. Just like the elders were right about Vietnam decades ago. Too bad we don’t learn from our own history.
I studied some history in college, and I really liked philosophy. To this day, I think back on Philosophy 101 and ponder the purpose of us. I have always loved people-watching, witnessing all the different ways in which we move through this world, like the way we walk. Everyone has a little bit of a different gait because we all had to learn to walk on our own. Nobody could do it for us, and our parents couldn’t buy our way in like they can, and do, for college. Everyone has to find their balance and that’s why we all have our own signature stride.
Makes me think: what if learning about the rest of life is similar to learning the basics? What if we all had the chance to experiment and figure it out for ourselves? For instance, when my husband and I do a word jumble I see the letters scramble and move them around to find the correct answer, whereas he hears the sounds they make and solves it auditorily. Imagine what this world would be like if each kid was able to learn in their own individual way, instead of the conventional one-size-fits-all schooling system.
My cousin, Ingrid Hillhouse Moore, strongly believed in the benefits of learning through play, especially at a younger age when we are so impressionable and eager to find new paths. Youth is the time to experiment, to test all the theories and standards that society has adopted. Elders should be available to answer any questions that come up, but now it’s time to sit on the porch, drink hard lemonade and reminisce about all the wonderfully unique mistakes we made in our youth.
Individuality is a beautiful thing. I think when we’re young, more important than attending lectures or classes is the lesson of living on our own, learning how to make our way in this world and leaving it a little better off for all. Our society has made it all about money, but there’s so much more to learn about life than collecting a big paycheck.
If I could go back to tell my coed-self one thing, it would be this: Everything they are going to teach you is an effin’ theory (f-bombs really emphasized the point to my younger self). In fact, most of what we know about this world is simply theory with a majority consensus. By the way, some theories hold more water than others, i.e. all the species riding on one boat through a major flood without eating each other is not as likely as some would like to believe. In conclusion, I would tell myself, science is a good thing to study, but science is malleable. Always question authority and remember, we’re all just animals with higher education.