This past Thursday, I graduated from college. A few weeks before finals started, my dad asked me what I learned in the classroom in all my four years at the University of Iowa. I honestly couldn't say I had genuinely "learned" anything. Sure, like all other students, I study material for finals on subject matter that I didn't know before the semester. But how much of that material is going to be retained? How much of it is useful? Will it help me get a job? How much of it is actual knowledge? Ultimately, I don't think I gained much or any knowledge from four years of secondary education.
That's nothing against the university. I think it's just the nature of what is taught and the system that a major university presents. I read books. I listened to PhDs. I may have gained a new perspective on information, but was it really anything new? Not really.
I had come to terms with these facts about halfway through my Junior year. I wasn't at college to learn anything. Not really. I was there to earn that piece o' paper-- the degree. People in the real world don't care what classes you took or how well you can spot the Orion constellation. All they care about is whether or not you graduated from college, and that piece o' paper is the proof. Well, I earned mine. Now what?
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