Blog 3

I wonder what the older generations of college graduates thought about those generations that come later. Is any kind of common ground even available? Are the ties that bind those of education, or might something else be the common factor? Sometimes I believe that they only thing we have in common with those other graduates could be the social times spent drinking. I can’t imagine going to college and writing a paper, but instead of doing the paper on your personnel computer you have to go to the library and rent or borrow a type writer. I can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to the research methods they would have had to use. No electronic journals, no helpful websites that show how exactly to write a paper in APA or MLA style. Really the only thing that we have in common is the personnel freedom and responsibilities, that come with drinking copious amounts of alcohol in social settings (aka the local bar). For the longest time college has been one of the main ways that a young person (of either gender) is able to go out experiencing life on their own for the first time and what do they normally do for the first month? Well in my personnel experience that first month is spent walking around town trying to figure out the best place to drink, and trying to find a upperclassman to get you a steady supply of booze. Not that school or homework is not a priority for incoming freshman, its just that not everyone has the same priorities anymore.
A big problem with college anymore is that most kids coming straight out of high-school really don’t consider all the other options available to them. They have been told by school guidance counselors, and by their parents, pretty much everybody has been telling these kids that the only way to succeed anymore is if you have some kind of college education. While that is fine for some people it definitely is not always the best idea for the majority of the kids coming to college. Back in the day if you had a undergraduate degree in a field you pretty much had a guarantee that you would be able to find a successful job. Now people need to up the ante a little bit; its all “masters, masters, masters.” Its like a undergraduate is the equivalent of the old high school degrees, and a masters nowadays is the equivalent of a undergraduate degree. Instead of going to USD for four years and amounting a sizable student loan debt, I could have attended some kind of general trade school, maybe welding, or electrician, or some other kind of blue collar work. Instead I have been sitting in classes, learning and memorizing things that I probably won’t have any kind of real use for in five years anyway. It seems like the fact that you got the degree is enough, almost like it lets your future employer know that you are trainable and able to do the work for the job that you hire on to.
I wonder what the college experience will be like for the generation after mine. Computers that synch automatically with your brain? Degrees that are not worth the paper they are written on? Or maybe a change in the mentality surrounding the drinking culture of a college town. My bet is that the sky falls, the aliens come down, or the government kills everyone. So why worry?