University/critical Thinking
I was very fortunate in that I first went to university in the 1980s. Back then my fees were $109 a year, and the student allowance was generous. This meant that I could easily afford to do a degree just for the pure pleasure of it. Hence I had a wonderful three years on campus, talking to people, writing poetry, playing my guitar, playing chess for hours with strangers in the café, and spending sunny hours with my girlfriend. On one occasion I hitchhiked 100 miles (160 kilometres) for a Dire Straits concert. I hitchhiked back in the middle of the night. The next day I had an exam, so I slept on a bench seat outside the exam room, and my classmates woke me up before it started. My study timetable was to play my guitar up until the last possible moment and then quickly write up an essay and hand it in. During those three years I got an A+ in Café 101 (i.e. I hung out at the café a lot), made lots of friends, got pretty good on the guitar, had a couple of poems published and thought, discussed and argued how to solve the world’s problems. Now that is how university should be. At the end of three years, as a bonus, the university awarded me a BA in Psychology!
I am convinced that charging students fees for study is a policy disaster that all Western country will pay for in future generations. People should be encouraged to study and learn and think. In the current environment the commercial subjects earn a lot of money for universities and these earnings subsidies the arts and other non- commercial subjects. This of course encourages funding towards Commerce and away from the Arts. This is an unfortunate imbalance because both are important for society.
The most valuable skill I learned during my Psychology degree was critical thinking. The ability to think clearly and objectively about any information presented to me. I never got this at school, and I can’t imagine my life if I had not learned this skill at an early age. I later did a Commerce degree which was (a) not nearly as interesting and
(b) concentrated on learning facts, figures and methodologies, not critical thinking.If you are just starting out in life, you should definitely go to university. The experience alone is worthwhile. But I recommend you do at least the introductory papers in Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy and perhaps History, Anthropology, Art History and a Literature paper. If you are older and busier, do a correspondence paper or go through an extramural program. At the very least go to a second hand bookshop and buy a first year text book on the subject and read it from cover to cover!
Side Note: I still come across people who think that they are not “bright” enough for university or feel that because no one from their family or neighbourhood went to university they shouldn’t. For one, you don’t have to be “bright” (hang around in a university café for an hour or two and you’ll see what I mean) you just have to apply yourself. I would wager that 95% of school leavers would succeed at university if they took subjects they liked and put their mind to their studies. Take “mature” students as an example. I know many people who failed at school and then in their thirties went to university and did spectacularly well. On average, mature students achieve greater success than school leavers, which I suspect is due mainly to focus and discipline. Secondly, the point of a university (as the name suggests) is that it is universally open to all. Forget what your family or friends or neighbours do or don’t do.