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From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: The purpose of Universities
Message-ID: <797@terak.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 18:40:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: terak.797
Posted: Mon Oct 14 18:40:11 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 20:54:20 EDT
References: <699@bu-cs.UUCP> <6431@duke.UUCP>
Organization: Calcomp Display Products Division, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 31

> Neato, flaming in net.cse....

Can I roast some marshmallows too?

What indeed do universities "purport to sell"?  A panacea, methinks.
Whatever it is that you desire, a college/university degree will help
you get it.

Personally, when I attended college/university, I was looking for
"learning" that would make life better for me.  Not necessarily job-
related (I attended a liberal-arts college).

Sorry to say, I found little of value there.  In the end, I came to the
conclusion that a person would learn more in four years of life than in
four years of college.  And I think that most serious college students
would agree that they experience very little "life" during their college
"four year sentence".

Look around your university.  Do you see many adults attending classes?
(That was rhetorical).  The reason that you don't is because college
is attractive mainly to people who don't yet know what they want, and
so don't know what they want from college.  If you don't know where
you're going, any road will do; the road through college is popular.
It also provides a socially acceptable excuse for putting off the hard
decisions about what to do with one's life.

So, friends, tell me I'm wrong.  Tell me what a college/university has
to offer its students that will be of value to those students and which
can not be obtained elsewhere at less cost in time and money.
-- 
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {calcom1,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug