Why university is still worth it
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By: Erik Fraunberger
What is the purpose of university? If your immediate answer is related to employment then I suspect that almost everyone would agree with you that many fields seek people with higher education.
However, what is implicit in this answer is the fact that university is now being treated as a means to end as opposed to an end in itself. While this is something that many, including myself, have occasionally lost sight of throughout our years at McMaster, it is important to reflect upon the often overlooked benefits of post-secondary education and how they can help us in this so-called “real world” we all keep hearing about.
It has been said that some students find it “agonizing” to go to lecture and dread taking some courses since they find them uninteresting or irrelevant to their studies. If you find it consistently difficult to go to your classes, perhaps university is not for you.
While memorizing facts can be a mundane activity at times, keeping these facts in our minds and readily accessible makes it easier for us to integrate them with new information we encounter and allows us to synthesize new connections between previously unrelated pieces of information.
A caveat of university is that the integration of new information and synthesis of new ideas is not necessarily the responsibility of the professor but that of the student. As the old saying goes: you can lead a horse (or in this case a student) to water but you can’t make it drink.
Developing new technologies, designing new drugs, and coming to new conclusions about complex philosophical works over discussion and debate are but a few of the ways that this integration and synthesis can change the real world. If these tasks are not undertaken and information is simply erased and discarded, then you have decided to close your mind to an aspect of the real world which is the antithesis of higher education.
As for university equipping us to handle the real world, there are numerous lessons that I have learned over the last five years of my time here at McMaster that I have readily applied to navigate the world outside of university.
For example, taking courses you do not want to take is essentially the same thing as learning to complete tasks that you may not want to do. The only way to positively cope with this scenario is through changing your attitude and mindset towards these courses. This will most definitely translate into the real world skill of adjusting to adverse or inconvenient situations.
A second example I’m sure many of us are familiar with is working in groups for a project, assignment, or presentation. We have all been in a group at some point with people we dislike or with whom we have difficulty interacting. Learning to compromise and work with other people is essential for success in the real world and without this important skill, I am fairly confident in asserting that you will have difficulty finding employment.
The most important lesson that McMaster has taught me, however, is how little we actually know about the world as well as the depth and scope of human thought surrounding it.
As a wise philosopher once said: all that I know is that I know nothing. Open your mind up to the intricate and vast world around you and, for goodness’ sake, get an education.
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