gothcactus 
the bullshit of college in America
The other day I was reading C. Hedge’s Empire of Illusion book about the inauthentic nature of the various institutions that makes America the capitalistic empire it is today.
After reading the chapter on the Illusion of Wisdom about the miseducation system that is the American university system, I wanted to write down some of my reflection of my own undergrad experience.
“Gaming” college, the sure way to success
I still remember my first year as a naive, optimistic student who still thought school was simply for “learning”, and since college is a form of school, therefore college must be where I learn.
My conception wasn’t wrong or unreasonable, but I laugh at my straightforward way of envisioning the college experience, as if it would just be an extension of grade school.
Like other college students, my peers in my dorm partied, joined frats, networked. I never really liked that stuff and spent my leisure time reading books that I didn’t have time to read in high school when I was maxing out my grades and test prepped. And watching anime and reading comic books. Also video games. Ya know, the nerd stuff.
But when I’m not doing leisure and nerd things, I would be catching up on my reading. Like all other liberal arts universities, the one I went to had us take all these humanities and social sciences courses that were supposed to make us explore various academic disciplines and be more “well-rounded”. These courses were a wide range of classes that wildly differed (as I found out later) depending on the professor. But one thing was in common: they all assigned an absurd amount of reading each class (like 100+ pages in ONE class).
And look, I can read 100+ pages a day…but these are college academic books we are talking about. They were full of jargon, intense analysis that not only required you to understand the general premise of the book, but also background knowledge that probably wasn’t covered in class. To actually absorb knowledge properly, one has to devote many hours to dissect and research the subject.
The obedient student in me read through all the pages diligently, not necessarily because I needed to to have a good grade (that doesn’t depend on reading and understanding materials, as I found out later). I was actually INTERESTED in the stuff I was reading because I LIKED the class I chose and the subject matter. It was a class on current affairs in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as it was called at the time). This was 2011 when almost no one in the mainstream talked about the historical ramifications of this “conflict”.
Well, I didn’t think it was uncommon to take classes because they were interesting since we had a full range of classes to choose from. There’s gotta be at least ONE that my peers genuinely wanted to take, right?
HAH. About that…
One day, I was reading for my Islamic studies class and my suitemate popped her head in to talk to my roommate. She spotted me at my desk and asked with a smile: “You are always reading that book, aren’t you?” I looked up and replied something polite, confused that she ISN’T reading. Am I the ONLY one reading?
For some reason that event always stuck out to me. At the time, I shrugged it off and didn’t think too much of it.
But as time passed, I realized how crucial that moment was.
It was an illustration of how wrong my vision of college was supposed to be, and what it actually was.
The surface advertisement of college is fairly consistent across the board: higher learning, rigorous coursework, deep analysis that prepares one to be a scholar who can skillfully perform their area of expertise in whatever occupation they choose to pursue.
So…my expectation was innocently just that: I’m gonna learn, be more competent and then get a good job. Boom, mission complete.
Yet, college is so much more complicated than that.
So much so, as Hedges noted, that it ironically contradicts the most obvious purpose of higher learning: education.
Like my suitemate asked, why did I bother reading that book all the time?
Did it help me get a better grade? No. Did it help me get better social status? Hell no, probably did negatives on that one. Did it get me access to exclusive clubs? Sure, club of me and only me.
So why the FUCK did I read that book all the time?
I finally understood her confusion. It wasn’t that deep. But it was a question that clarified something for me because it was hacking at the fundamental contradiction of colleges and universities: Higher education institutions that could care less about the education of students.
Even at the most basic level of the purpose of higher ed institutions of rigorous intellectual practice, they fail miserably. Students learn to “game” college instead. In fact, there was a book (and maybe even many) that was explicitly written to “game” college, as mentioned by Hedges.
My suitemates followed precisely the rituals and practices that “gamed” college. They went to parties and joined frats for the social status. They studied and read just enough to get good grades. They joined exclusive clubs so they can have a stellar resume. Unsurprisingly, last time I heard, my roommate started work at Deloitte. I remember seeing pictures of her with other corporate-dressed coworkers in a fancy ballroom, holding glasses of Champaign.
I still feel silly that I didn’t realize this. Granted, as a child of an immigrant father, I didn’t have any guide in understanding what the hell college in America was like, but I never thought how monstrous it was, and how much it deviated from its advertised purpose.
Imagine my disillusionment at the fact that college WASN’T about learning.