I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough.
We’ve recently faced a barrage of news stories and online blatherings that call into question the validity of a college degree. Is it even worth it to go to college? How can you justify exorbitant student loans? Are students learning anything, anyway?
One cynical and widely read New Republic article from this summer boasted the aggressive headline “Don’t send your kid to the Ivy League: The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies.”
The story critiques not just the Ivy Leagues, but the broader cultural mainstays – costly test preparation tutors, overzealous admissions offices – that perpetuate a hollow sense of competition without nurturing genuine intellectual development.
But William Deresiewicz’s article only tells part of the story: While he might have experience in academia as a professor and an admissions representative, he’s not a 21st-century student. And that lack of perspective makes a difference.
Freshmen, your next four years will include a great deal of time inside the classroom. But if you do it right, those hours will only represent a fraction of your intellectual development. If you came here to become smarter, more culturally aware and more socially astute, your peers – not just your professors – are your best bet.
In his article, Deresiewicz says he “taught many wonderful people” as a Yale professor.
“But most of them seemed content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. Very few were passionate about ideas,” he writes. “Very few saw college as part of a larger project of intellectual discovery and development. Everyone dressed as if they were ready to be interviewed at a moment’s notice.”
GW students are, of course, no strangers to dress-to-impress syndrome. Many of us bemoan the culture of fraternity brothers wearing suits to seem professional.
But it’s reductive to look at the entire college experience in this light. What about conversations and debates that take place outside of the classroom, like when I stayed up late to learn about the legal arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry before a Proposition 8 demonstration the next day at the Supreme Court?
What about when a group of students and I traveled to a food pantry – another day, to an underfunded elementary school – to educate ourselves about what poverty really looks like instead of basing our ideas strictly on photos in a textbook?
What about when I debated the merits of the emerging charter school movement with a colleague at The Hatchet?
In an analysis of whether college is intellectually stimulating, we can’t gloss over these essential elements of the college experience.
Yes, you’ve heard that advice before: Take advantage of everything GW has to offer. But when I say “everything,” I don’t just mean a rigorous course load, office hours with your adviser and a flashy “Only at GW” internship. I personally have learned as much from my peers – everything from the basic (how to bake double chocolate chip cookies) to the sophisticated (how to listen to Beyonce’s newest album in a feminist and socioeconomic context) – as I have from more institutionalized forms of learning.
Deresiewicz says an “undergraduate experience devoted exclusively to career preparation is four years largely wasted.”
True, but that’s not really what’s happening. Thought and intellectual discovery should not be rigidly confined to classroom-based exercises like reading Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” from cover to cover. That’s an old way of thinking. Today’s smartest students are the ones who realize that college offers more than just 15 hours a week of sitting in desks aligned in neat rows.
Deresiewicz’s argument, while flawed, isn’t based on complete nonsense. He’s right that there are too many test-prep centers urging students to focus on numbers that experts increasingly call archaic and irrelevant. There are too many helicopter parents bent on sending their child to the school that boasts the most well-regarded name instead of the one that best fits him or her.
But we shouldn’t allow these unfortunate realities to taint our vision of what American higher education often is: a place where 20-somethings can surround themselves with intellectually curious peers capable of both leading smart conversation and pursuing meaningful careers.
I’ve had enough. If we’re going to talk about college, let’s tell the whole story. Sure, institutions like GW are far from perfect. But they’re not turning me – or anyone else – into a zombie.
Justin Peligri, a senior majoring in political communication, is a Hatchet senior columnist.
