craigmcn

Another thing I’ve realized is that here at the university we seem to be deceiving our students on a couple of levels. We tell them to come to university to get a good job. Once they get here, we tell them it’s not about the job, but the education and experience. Wait. What?

True, it’s mostly about the education and experience (as previously discussed). For some—professional colleges, for instance—good jobs are often available after graduation, and are only available to professional-college graduates. And there are really interesting jobs for most liberal arts graduates, if they want to look for them.

But a university education is not intended to provide good jobs. It is intended to make students more knowledgeable and more aware of the world around them. Students should come away from a university education with skills in critical thinking, reading, writing (communication), and possibly some discipline-specific knowledge. In short, students should graduate as employable humans.