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At this point, I’m in the home stretch. It’s exciting to think I have one semester left of my undergraduate career, but I’ve got a knack for seeing the glass half empty, especially when it comes to academics.
For the vast majority of students, those who attend a university fresh out of high school and do not continue immediately on to graduate school, the undergrad experience is sandwiched between two crucial stages: the search for the perfect school and the search for a job.
Each of these perspectives, that of the high school senior and the college senior, are different, but both positions help identify some major flaws in America’s current post-secondary education system.
While my job search has not kicked into full swing, I am well aware of the task ahead and how my college career will factor into it. Meanwhile, a sibling of mine has been entrenched in the college application process for months now and, like many high school students, has sacrificed an ample amount of time and sanity to the process.
Here’s the problem — I’m at the end of my rope and I’m beginning to feel tragically unprepared for the “real world.” On the other hand, my sister is losing sleep over getting accepted to the right school in pursuit of what universities are trying to make her believe is some blissful shortcut to success.
I’ve got friends at universities across the state and the country who are all coming to the same harsh realization: While better than no post-secondary education, a bachelor’s degree is a far cry away from the golden-ticket dream jobs we were promised when we were younger. So, why are colleges still perpetuating this story?
The mythos regarding undergraduate education in this country needs to change drastically if we are to have any hope of cultivating a diligent, self-starting work force.
College is a process, a journey and above all, a stepping stone. When I was a high school senior it was painted as the end-all-be-all — the culmination of our entire young lives. While I’ve enjoyed my time here and think I made the right choice in attending school, I’ve come to the stark conclusion that the ever-propagated go-to-college,-get-a-job ideology is a pile of cow manure.
When I do get out, no one will be holding my hand, pointing me in the right direction or lining up to employ me as I was falsely led to believe in high school. While I have plenty of peers who have found jobs and are making their way, I know just as many who are struggling.
I am also extremely lucky to be graduating in four years with an idea of what I might want to do. Plenty of my friends are going to be in school for five or six years and even then have no clue what they want to do. And schools don’t seem to be advertising this eight-year plan in any admissions pamphlets.
Snap back to my sister. She’s still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about the college experience. Not that this is unfounded — compared to high school, it most certainly rules — but the slow and steady process of undergraduate cynicism isn’t something I wish on anyone.
Building college up creates many problems, the least of which is attracting people who belong there. If high school students were more educated on exactly what college is and what will happen there instead of being fed the same old line, the students on campuses across America will be more interested in being there.
What I am proposing is re-casting the perception of the undergraduate education in our society. Given the straight and narrow, I think this generation could stand a much better chance at making the right decisions regarding their future.
I’ve found my time as an undergraduate to be valuable and rewarding, but I am already feeling uneasy about what exactly my degree will mean. If someone had given me the real deal when I started school, I think I’d have a much better attitude about where I’ll end up after I march down the aisle next May.
Kegan Zema is a fourth-year journalism student. He is the style editor for The Maine Campus.
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