You’re mostly right about the benefits of college, but this idea of a transition into functional adulthood is outdated. It reflects a bygone era of the job market.
After graduating college and being unable to find a job, I am much less functional and significantly less adult.
Having a job may be functional on a practical level, but in today’s job market, employability is no longer a reflection of who you are as a person, and shouldn’t be used to determine whether or not you’re an “adult.” By “functional adulthood” I meant things like the ability to socialize, and the ability to think rationally about complex problems like politics and religion instead of just blindly following whatever your parents said was right. People don’t always learn those skills, but there’s a reason that republicans often think of college as “indoctrination,” because their kids keep coming back with different beliefs than the ones they left with.
Thank you! Yes, college was important for me to do that sort of thing. I think another part of the problem is that some people see college as entirely about career aspects and don’t engage with it as a holistic experience. Like yeah part of college was the classes, and those were important, they challenged me to learn how to think, how to defend my statements, how to write well, how to do my career, and more. But college was also hanging out chatting with other people interested in knowledge, other people of varied backgrounds and experiences, and just other young people who were interested in living like young people in a relatively low structure environment.
At first I just showed up to classes and went home. I got very little out of it except a few weird stories. But then I got involved, I did stuff, made friends, joined clubs and orgs, and it made me into who I am today.
You’re mostly right about the benefits of college, but this idea of a transition into functional adulthood is outdated. It reflects a bygone era of the job market.
After graduating college and being unable to find a job, I am much less functional and significantly less adult.
Having a job may be functional on a practical level, but in today’s job market, employability is no longer a reflection of who you are as a person, and shouldn’t be used to determine whether or not you’re an “adult.” By “functional adulthood” I meant things like the ability to socialize, and the ability to think rationally about complex problems like politics and religion instead of just blindly following whatever your parents said was right. People don’t always learn those skills, but there’s a reason that republicans often think of college as “indoctrination,” because their kids keep coming back with different beliefs than the ones they left with.
Thank you! Yes, college was important for me to do that sort of thing. I think another part of the problem is that some people see college as entirely about career aspects and don’t engage with it as a holistic experience. Like yeah part of college was the classes, and those were important, they challenged me to learn how to think, how to defend my statements, how to write well, how to do my career, and more. But college was also hanging out chatting with other people interested in knowledge, other people of varied backgrounds and experiences, and just other young people who were interested in living like young people in a relatively low structure environment.
At first I just showed up to classes and went home. I got very little out of it except a few weird stories. But then I got involved, I did stuff, made friends, joined clubs and orgs, and it made me into who I am today.