College Stomps All Over Interests

[mrcockburn]

That's why it's actually better not to take classes that you have interest in, *if* formal education in that interest is optional.

That is, if you want to learn about chemistry, it's a good class to take. You NEED to learn from someone competent in order to get anywhere.

However, with something more open-ended like creative writing or philosophy (provided it's for interest and not as a path to law school, etc) you're best off just exploring the subject on your own.

Yes, college WILL disrupt your natural rhythm (or lack thereof) when it comes to spending time on the subject. However, it's not the college's fault. It has to have some kind of schedule in order to teach and get things done. The class can't wait around until you're in the "mood" to paint (which might not be until next year, etc.) In a class with many students, it must teach universally according to certain standards and it cannot cater to only you.

So, you're gonna have to be bound to the school's timetable. That's why I took up Accounting. I had no passion for the school to take away.

 

[Eldanen]

Oh, and another thing... you will never have more liesure time in your life than you do right now, while you're in college. That is, not until you retire, and maybe not even then.

Yeah, I didn't believe it either, but it's true.

Not true. Of course, it depends on whether or not you plan on having a spouse & kids. Friend time, etc. But if people find so much time to watch television and do other extracurricular activities like video games while working a job, which, they do, they probably have time to do other things as well. I remember asking one girl once what books she enjoyed reading, or something along those lines, and she said in a rather exasperated tone of voice, "I don't have time to read books!" Untruth, much?

Actually, I've heard it said that school is more time consuming than anything else a person would choose to do, like, say, a job. And from my experience and those I've asked, it rings true.

 

[Haphazard]

So, you're gonna have to be bound to the school's timetable. That's why I took up Accounting. I had no passion for the school to take away.

Exactly why I'm looking into translation and mathematics/statistics. Though I like them, I could not consider them "passions."

 

[Amethyst]

Leave liberal arts.

This.

 

[Stevo]

I am the opposite as the OP. I find myself energized by my lecture classes in my major area and I have a lot of fun just learning the subject material. Then again, as an INTP learning new things is fun for its own sake and I actually like the traditional lecture setting more than any other method of teaching. To me it's the most efficient way to get information across in any amount of time and hands-on experiences are just pointless distractions from absorbing the material. Of course, as a Geologist, learning with hand samples is very important, but that is why we have both lecture and lab sections.

 

[Katsuni]

I'm in college myself right now, but I haven't found many issues with it. One of the instructors drones on and on, but the others are all pretty epic win.

However, from my PARENTS... their support of anything I wanted to do was about the fastest way to kill that thing for me. Not because they were 'yay' over it, but because the few times they interfered, it was always pretty much "ZOMG LETS MAKE YEU INTO A CHILD PRODIGY" and it was nothing BUT for 24 hours a day until I wanted to tear my hair out.

So I understand that there are things that will KILL yeur desires to do something. So far, college has been a huge improvement over school... stuff is done with a reason, and the courses are far more practical, with teaching methods generally far better than grade school, which was generally "memorize this random crap that has no value".

Maybe yeu have crap instructors, maybe yeu just didn't like the courses as much as yeu thought, maybe there's alot more monotonous boring work involved in those lines of work than yeu believed. Who knows?

College may just not be for some people either, and some colleges may just suck. I don't know where the end result lies.

I do know, however, that my college ACTIVELY tries to dissuade students from its' courses and scare them off. This irritates the management, since it's a privately owned college, but it does increase their job finding rate for those that pass the entire course, and leads to much higher dropout rate in early quarters, allowing for better personalized training in later quarters. Maybe it's a similar mindset?

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Every time I've heard this notion get voiced it gets criticized..

By whom? People who get paid to act as propagandists for the college and teach courses? People who have been recently indoctrinated into the cult, or the straight-A students?

Maybe college is what you make of it, and maybe I'm making it wrong but I share your concern...

No, college is not what you make it. Certain influences do stimulate an interest in learning, yet others do not. It is hard to imagine how the conventional educational program of most colleges can be conductive to a cultivation of a learning interest. Students are rarely encouraged to think autonomously or to explore their own subjects of interest, they're usually required to merely show that they've memorized the content of the lecture of the course reading. Students who choose to pursue their own academic topics instead of those that have been assigned are penalized severely, yet students who merely regurgitate the material and do so exactly in a way that they have been asked to are profusely rewarded. Whether these A students forget everything they learned months after the examination or developed any skills in creative discourse or problem solving concerns very few instructors. Why should it?


Students have little interest in learning to begin with as our culture does not value education. The majority of the pupils are young adults who go to school to get a job or to advance their social status and because the students are a significant source of the university's revenue, professors must provide the kind of a services that the students will be willing to pay for. If the professor's created the kind of a curriculum that required genuine learning for academic success, a drop out rate would be much higher and the professor's would have to spend a lot more time on course-work. The latter is not profitable to the educators either because their professional reputation is much more influenced by the quality and quantity of their scholarly publications than by their pedagogic performance. Its much easier to give a simple multiple choice test the answers to which could be found in a lecture or a textbook than to assign lengthy essays that required the students to come up with arguments of substantial complexity, isn't it? The former would take less than 2 hours to grade for the entire class, yet the latter could easily take up to 20 or 30. Its also easier to grade an essay on the basis of how well it follows seemingly arbitrary instructions such as APA/MLA formatting, grammatical correctness, the right number of quotations, number of sources, number of scholarly views recapitulated and all the other non-sense than to evaluate the students' papers for conceptual substance, isn't it? Furthermore, if doing so is also more lucrative and helpful to the professor's careers, who could blame the instructors for structuring the classes in a way that discourages learning?

If you are interested in learning, you're in the minority and comprise a very small group of students whose interests the university is requested to take into account. On that note, I just do not see how blaming the university for 'stomping all over interests' makes any sense. It seems to me that at best, the universities deter learning at the yoke of their philistine customers to whose demands they must pander as any other business would be well advised to.

 

[Katsuni]

Oh, and another thing... you will never have more liesure time in your life than you do right now, while you're in college. That is, not until you retire, and maybe not even then.

Yeah, I didn't believe it either, but it's true.

WTH!?

I've spent some months with as little as 2 hours of sleep per night due to massive loads of homework. If this is "never will have more until retirement", I may as well just kill myself now since I think I'll just die of sleep deprivation if that number's reduced to zero >.<

All nighters are getting entirely too common, and even my days off I typically spend 10-14 hours working on stuff.

Exactly which college did YEU go to that had free time!?

Even now I'm multitasking XD

 

[Edasich]

By whom? People who get paid to act as propagandists for the college and teach courses? People who have been recently indoctrinated into the cult, or the straight-A students?





No, college is not what you make it. Certain influences do stimulate an interest in learning, yet others do not. It is hard to imagine how the conventional educational program of most colleges can be conductive to a cultivation of a learning interest. Students are rarely encouraged to think autonomously or to explore their own subjects of interest, they're usually required to merely show that they've memorized the content of the lecture of the course reading. Students who choose to pursue their own academic topics instead of those that have been assigned are penalized severely, yet students who merely regurgitate the material and do so exactly in a way that they have been asked to are profusely rewarded. Whether these A students forget everything they learned months after the examination or developed any skills in creative discourse or problem solving concerns very few instructors. Why should it?


Students have little interest in learning to begin with as our culture does not value education. The majority of the pupils are young adults who go to school to get a job or to advance their social status and because the students are a significant source of the university's revenue, professors must provide the kind of a services that the students will be willing to pay for. If the professor's created the kind of a curriculum that required genuine learning for academic success, a drop out rate would be much higher and the professor's would have to spend a lot more time on course-work. The latter is not profitable to the educators either because their professional reputation is much more influenced by the quality and quantity of their scholarly publications than by their pedagogic performance. Its much easier to give a simple multiple choice test the answers to which could be found in a lecture or a textbook than to assign lengthy essays that required the students to come up with arguments of substantial complexity, isn't it? The former would take less than 2 hours to grade for the entire class, yet the latter could easily take up to 20 or 30. Its also easier to grade an essay on the basis of how well it follows seemingly arbitrary instructions such as APA/MLA formatting, grammatical correctness, the right number of quotations, number of sources, number of scholarly views recapitulated and all the other non-sense than to evaluate the students' papers for conceptual substance, isn't it? Furthermore, if doing so is also more lucrative and helpful to the professor's careers, who could blame the instructors for structuring the classes in a way that discourages learning?

If you are interested in learning, you're in the minority and comprise a very small group of students whose interests the university is requested to take into account. On that note, I just do not see how blaming the university for 'stomping all over interests' makes any sense. It seems to me that at best, the universities deter learning at the yoke of their philistine customers to whose demands they must pander as any other business would be well advised to.

Great post!

 

[Rebe]

I think I had a negative moment when I wrote this post and wasn't specific in what I was saying. 'Stomps' is over-dramatic of me, haha. No, I do love college. I much, much prefer it over my part-time jobs as a cashier/etc/etc. I am even considering graduate school.

I think college also makes you aware of your specific interests. I realized recently that I may be interested in politics but I am not interested in EVERYTHING about politics. Government administration details are dull to me. I enjoy certain sections of my textbook a lot more than others and I think I was confused by it. I thought if you are into a 'topic' or 'field', you'd be interested in every aspect of it. Or even be able to tolerate it.

As for English Literature, I love contemporary literature but I do not find British literature or writing from the 1800s as interesting. It's just my personal interests and that is okay. In college though, if you choose a field, you are exposed to much more than what you are passionate about, and the two sort of drain each other at times. I might be willing to write one essay more than the other but my second essay is due first leaving me with less energy and aspiration to write the more interesting essay despite the interest. If that makes sense.

No, I am not saying that I hate college. Not at all. I was exploring a murky idea. I also get very energized and excited by the particularly excellent professors. I have had quite a couple actually. My comparative literature professor blew my mind every day in class; it was an amazing experience. She was def. an introvert ... IXXJ of some sort. Not ISFJ, INFJ probably.

Yes, people value more 'practical' intelligence (fe, te, se, si), not so much analytical intelligence (fi, ti, ne, ni).

 

[Katsuni]

I think college also makes you aware of your specific interests. I realized recently that I may be interested in politics but I am not interested in EVERYTHING about politics. Government administration details are dull to me. I enjoy certain sections of my textbook a lot more than others and I think I was confused by it. I thought if you are into a 'topic' or 'field', you'd be interested in every aspect of it. Or even be able to tolerate it.

Oooh no no no there's alot of different sub-jobs related to things; some yeu'll like, some yeu won't =3

For example, I'm learning 3d modeling and such, but there's a TON of different aspects to it... from storyboarding, to modeling, animation, lighting, etc etc etc. Lots of different sub-branches, and some I like (animation and modeling are fun), some are kinda alright but nothing special (lighting, texturing), and some flat out suck (storyboarding, UV'ing and rigging suck baaaaaaad).

Same goes for any career path; there will be some parts that suck, and some parts that are enjoyable. Different branches, will have different values of each they go into, but likely shall touch a little bit on each in the process.

So being a 'politician', is kind of vague... whot do yeu want to be a politician OF? Governor? Maybe in charge of fisheries? A senate member devoted to tax law reform? There's literally hundreds of jobs that count as 'politician', all under a big blanketed umbrella that's all encompassing. Yeu will dabble in a bit of each, but yeu may have a particular area yeu're strong in and appreciate more.

Find out which parts yeu enjoy the most, and which ones yeu hate the most, then figure out which job/career path will lend yeu the most yeu enjoy and the least yeu hate, (there'll always be some of each) and aim towards that goal =3

 

[Rebe]

^ Yeah, yeah. It's kinds of cliche for an INFP to say, but I have decided that I am not suited for government jobs, and more for the non-governmental organizations, esp. of the international reach sort. I am unstructured and unconventional and want to do more 'field, hands-on work' rather than office/phone/computer monitoring work. Yeah, I am excited to take this, my career, one step at a time, and see where it leads me. I don't feel the need to plan out the next ten years. I will think about opportunities as it comes and see where I can go with this, or where I will end up.

 

[Mycroft]

SW, you bring attention to valid concerns, but what would you propose be done about it? PhD programs are based around the sort of learning you appear to have in mind, but it's the undergraduates' tuition payments that keep the universities in the black.

 

[mmhmm]

i would have gotten more out of my university if had gone... at this age instead of 17.

 

[You]

I have heard this before but never believed it. I like getting grades on my written pieces and seeing myself improve and be given specific tasks to accomplish since I am so, so unstructured.

I used to be an English major until I tried it and I grew extremely tired of the formal classes - some of it was irrelevant, some of it was inaccurate, dull, etc.

Now I am taking political science classes which has left me without interest once I am done with the classes because I am done and still figuring out the complete bombardment of information. Somehow college courses just takes the fun out of previous raw passion. Not to say that I will change my major, but something I heard but never believed.

Like putting a bird in a cage. Whatever that means.

 

[foolish heart]

From what I have seen, I think it's more that college accentuates just how little you know about your own interests and what they relate to pragmatically. Maybe it feels like your interests are being stomped on, but college ought to be a means to developing your interests to the point where they become marketable. Obviously there are classes that someone will not want to take and/or will not see how it relates to their intended destination, but they are still "required" by the academic world.

Understanding your interests is the key to finding the inspiration needed to grind through the less desirable parts of your journey. It's when you don't really understand your interests and motivations that you end up getting into something for the wrong reasons and it's only a matter of time until your passion dies.

This is somewhat counter intuitive because many people think that going from A->B directly is always the best or even fastest way to get there. They want to get through college and get on with a fufilling career. Once you realize that finding out what "B" is more of a challenge than getting there, you may see the value of getting off the beaten track once in a while.

Have you considered taking a break for a year and doing some work study or traveling abroad? I attended college in highschool and 1 year afterwards, but for nearly 4 years I've been working and trying everything I could get my hands on. Now that I'm returning to education I expect I will have a much better chance at fulfilling my reason for learning than all the people I know who went directly into college after highschool. I can definitely vouch for the value of stepping away for a while to learn about yourself and the world. I understand nobody wants to feel like they're behind, but I would actually say people miss more opportunities while doggedly grinding through college than taking time away to mix it up. Think tortoise and the hair.

 

[speculative]

^ Yeah, yeah. It's kinds of cliche for an INFP to say, but I have decided that I am not suited for government jobs, and more for the non-governmental organizations, esp. of the international reach sort. I am unstructured and unconventional and want to do more 'field, hands-on work' rather than office/phone/computer monitoring work. Yeah, I am excited to take this, my career, one step at a time, and see where it leads me. I don't feel the need to plan out the next ten years. I will think about opportunities as it comes and see where I can go with this, or where I will end up.

Look into grant writing. At any NP, this will be a vital skill. And generally, it's something they don't even mention in college. Pretty much every college "skill," I have found, has been useless in a real-world practical job search, except for writing. (And writing is highly under-valued in society anyway.)