Lots of that is interesting, but the students seem to have unrealistic expectations about some things - like "When I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn't exist today". I doubt this is true even for someone just born, and seems extremely unlikely for someone already in college. I know a lot of people who have graduated in the last 10 years, and only a handful work doing things that didn't exist when they were in college. The majority are doctors, lawyers, teachers, civil engineers, computer programmers, writers, journalists, and mid-level managers.

I expect this trend to continue. Sure there will be new fields, but for most intents and purposes they will require the same sorts of basic skills as current ones.

I think most people miss the purpose of a University being a place to come together in a forum for discussion, debate and obtaining world views and knowledge from somebody other than one's family and small circle of influence. Universities were NEVER intended to be used for vocational training. If you don't exploit what a University has to offer as an intellectual, technological or social resource, then you are just wasting your time.

Take this from somebody who wish he hadn't blown the opportunity to go to a University...I see people just dragging through college because "it's what you're supposed to do." It's a shame.

I very much agree yet disagree with you rottenseed. You speak correctly about what University truly can offer. But also downplaying it's CURRENT function, and for what it has become in today's society. So the 'ideal' may be achievable, you should not overlook its main purpose in today's world.

It is true that it has become a source of vocational training—and one of the most important ones in our society (where else are you going to achieve a higher education on the arts, the sciences, philosophy, history, social studies, etc?) My point is: don't be there just because "it's what you do". And if you are, don't be surprised that the path hasn't been laid out before you. A student at a University should be itching to break the mold and excel at a subject or multiple subjects. Class sizes too big? Professor doesn't know your name? Use office hours, make an effort to stand out...go above and beyond your tendency for mediocrity—that's what college should be about.

Josiah F. Bumstead ... thats a made-up name if e'er I heard one.

Excel at what rottenseed? Excel at making someone else fantastically rich and yourself marginally comfortable while under heavy debt and restricted by ever increasing lack of civil liberty - only to have your dollar continually de-valued while your dream home goes up in price to the point where you have to ask your parents for the down and then resign to the fact that you'll be in debt for it well into your 70's. Unless you get cancer before then, which is an odds on favorite, then you'll lose your house in order to gain a year or 3.

Then you can excel at raising your kids under ever-tightening control methods while your guilt mounts from never doing enough for them compounded by child-targeted advertising and guilt-riding profiteers, getting nickled and dimed throughout their glory years with twice a year school pictures and little admin costs attached to every move they make.

Then get judged by what amount of grace you have to suffer this.

I think you're right about developing relationships and and contacts in college primarily because at the end of the day it might very well be all you have. But if you look on the kids of today with a reserved disgust, just keep in mind that they may have in their minds the futility of it all.

Well my point is that a university should be a source of personal growth, not a basis of vocational training. We've perverted the purpose of universities altogether. I don't disagree that students should be disappointed with what they are getting out of college for what they're putting into it. Many people who go to these colleges go there because they feel like they don't have a chance to succeed without a college degree and, in some sense, one would be justified in thinking this. But because a obtaining a college education is driven into a younger students head so much, one who wouldn't normally feel they wanted to attend a university of higher learning, is prodded and coaxed, with empty promises, into attending.

Because there is only limited spots in universities this saturation of the education system has caused this inflation of price, less personal attention and an all around lessened experience from what the original intended experience for a university is. I don't know what the answer to the problem is but the problem remains that people actually seeking higher education on a University level, aren't having their expectations met.

Wow, I'm surprised so many people don't see the actual message here.

College and higher education is just that, higher education. Whether it's vocational or simply intellectual, it's education. Everyday that I pick up my guitar and play, I learn something. Every day I pick up a book and read, I learn something. Every day I talk to someone new, I learn something.

But the question is just that . . . ARE WE LEARNING? In one of my classes, almost everyone has a laptop, but no one is listening to the professor. Why? Facebook and print out of the notes. Are we going to discuss something? No? Why? Because out of the little over 100 students in that SMALL class, there is no time for discussion.

What are we learning in that class? What is the value? The point is to make it a place where that intellectual value you guys are debating about can be seen and felt. Who cares if it's vocational, philosophical, or whatever. The bottom line, WHAT ARE WE LEARNING? If anything . . . .

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, October 15th, 2007 9:13pm PDT - promote requested by dotdude.