
Going to university does not broaden the mind - godelmachine
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/24/going-to-university-does-not-broaden-the-mind
======
jedberg
University definitely broadened my mind. I grew up in an area that was 99+%
white and 50+% Jewish. We literally had “the black family” with twins who were
our top track stars. And a few Asian families who hid their Asianness.

It was at University that I learned about Asian culture. It was the first time
I used chopsticks. It was the first time I drank tea without sugar. It was the
first time I ate Chinese food that wasn’t deep fried. It was the first time I
had dim sum. I learned to understand people with heavy accents (it was the
first time I’d ever met someone for whom English was a second language). It
was where I learned the diffence between Chinese (north and south),
Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese people.

It was also the first time I ever met someone who was home schooled, someone
who a lesbian or pretty much anyone who wasn’t straight, other than the one
openly gay kid in high school.

It was the first time I learned that making racist and homophobic jokes was
not ok.

It was the first time I learned the girls can write code.

Without college I would probably be a racist and not believe that social
programs are necessary.

~~~
sethammons
True story. At work, folks going out for lunch. Ask if I want dim sum. I had
never heard of it. All I could think of, in redneck fashion, was "that boy
ain't bright, he's dim some." I declined going. Still not sure what it is. I
think it is a soup.

~~~
hnmonkey
But why didn't you just google it or look it up? In the time it took to write
out this comment you could've googled it and seen the brief one-sentence
description that appears and explains it. I get not doing that in the moment
but you seem to be implying this happened a while back and you've been okay
just assuming they're all going and eating soup for lunch. Were you never
curious about it after that initial invitation?

------
yosito
For those interested in broadening their minds, I highly recommend living in a
country other than the one you were born in for at least a year. Preferably
one with a different language than your first language. It's pretty hard to do
that while still hanging on to your narrow mindset. I work remotely and I've
had the privilege of being able to live internationally since 2012. But even
if you don't work remotely there are ways to have a similar experience. I once
volunteered for a school in a foreign country for two years. Volunteer
opportunities are abundant. And if you can't live internationally for one
reason or another, learning another language and joining language meetup
groups is a great way to connect with people and ideas that will expand your
mind. And reading books from authors outside of the places you're familiar
with is also a great way to expand your mind by exposing yourself to new
ideas.

~~~
happertiger
I really think the US should require all college grads to spend a year
overseas in a country that speaks a different language.

I got an education and then I got a real education from travel myself.

~~~
analog31
My daughter just started college, so we got our fill of the whole process of
choosing a college. Virtually every college claimed to offer some sort of
overseas study, either as a requirement or as a frictionless option. The
exceptions are regional and commuter colleges that tend to be geared towards
being more affordable.

~~~
yardie
I spent a while living abroad. Here is a nugget I found out. You don’t have to
go through the schools exchange program. It’s vastly cheaper to simply apply
yourself. Then make sure the credits transfer back (most will if the school
isn’t particularly choosy). Most exchanges charge you standard tuition. Works
out great for the foreign student but not so great for the American exchange
student paying US tuition.

A colleague of mine (french) did his exchange at Stanford. He really enjoyed
it. Enjoyed it even more once he found out what Stanford students were paying
($$$$) compared to what he was paying, PARIS-IX is practically free.

------
scarface74
Only the privileged can afford to go to college to “broaden their mind”. Most
people go to college to compete in the market and get a job.

It’s amazing how much push back I get about computer science degrees should
teach marketable skills and people say they weren’t meant to be ”vocational
degrees” and you shouldn’t go to college for “job training”.

Just the idea that people are suggesting in some of the comments that everyone
should be “required to live a year abroad” as part of college is more evidence
of the bubble that many HN posters are in. How many middle class[1] families
can afford to send their children overseas for a week let alone a year?

[1] By middle class I mean the real middle class income of about $60K a year
not the Silicon Valley/west coast definition of middle class.

~~~
nixpulvis
I feel there's a bit of a strange tension in this argument. Why can't you have
both?

While I was in classes it _wasn 't_ job focused, or at least not directly. I
often hear people complain, for example about how they never use anything they
learned in college for their programming jobs. I find this impossible to
believe. The process of building a binary search tree or proving the pumping
lemma are all exercises. Just like anything else being good at things takes
practice, college is (or should be) as good of an environment for this as we
can create.

If you're looking for a solution to the feeling that college doesn't do a good
enough job preparing you for the working world, I'd like to at least mention
how much of a fan of coop programs I am, and how they can be integrated into
the higher education process.

People telling you directly that college shouldn't be about job training are
feeling a bit nostalgic and idealistic, while holding on to a hint of truth.

So I say again, what's stopping the underprivileged student, paying for
college with loans and scholarships, from broadening their mind, while getting
the skills to pay the bills?

~~~
scarface74
_The process of building a binary search tree or proving the pumping lemma are
all exercises. Just like anything else being good at things takes practice,
college is (or should be) as good of an environment for this as we can
create._

Your examples are at least related to software. What good is Art History? The
6 courses of calculus, differential equations, and three or four other classes
math classes I took over 20 years ago.

Another retort people say is that any specific language you learn in school
will be obsolete soon as you graduate. That’s only true if you are teaching
the latest $cool_kids_front_end_framework. Even that could be alleviated if
you had courses your senior year focused on what’s in demand right now.

But, from my vantage point, the five go to industry languages haven’t changed
in the past 10-15 years. By 2004, the web was already a big deal as was
Jsvascript. Java and C# were big in the enterprise and while scripting
languages that start with P (Python, Perl, Php) go in and out of style knowing
one of them would help you move to another one and of course C/C++ will never
die.

 _While I was in classes it wasn 't job focused, or at least not
directly....People telling you directly that college shouldn't be about job
training are feeling a bit nostalgic and idealistic_

Again, you had the privilege of not “being job focused.” So did I to an
extent, I already knew how to program before going to college - I was hobbyist
Basic and assembly language programmer for six years prior. The only thing
four years of college did for me was expose me to two useful classes - C and
data structures. But by then, I already had a C compiler for my Mac and was
playing around with it.

But my parents growing up in the segregated south didn’t have that privilege.
They knew their only way out was college. There only reason for going to
college was to get a job. Middle class families aren’t sending thier 2.5 kids
to college to be “better citizens of the world”.

 _So I say again, what 's stopping the underprivileged student, paying for
college with debt and loans, from broadening their mind, while getting the
skills to pay the bills?_

How much less debt could they have if society didn’t look down on “vocational
training”? Schools/degrees that just focus on learning just what you need to
get a job.

~~~
jeena
It seems to me that you equal Computer Science to Computer Programming. The
later is just a really small subset of the former, and like you write most
people already know how to do it before they attend University.

In my CS studies we never learned any programming, it was kind of assumed that
you already know how to do it. Instead we focused on all the other things like
computational complexity theory, computer graphics, programming language
theory, design of computational systems, theory of computation, human–computer
interaction, artificial intelligence and all the other much more interesting
stuff.

After I left university I in practice haven't written any code yet (in 5
years), I've been only working with designing big systems which are later
populated with components which are programmed by programmers.

But even though, the mantra at university was always, we don't teach you any
specific language, we teach you the building blocks behind those languages
with the goal so that you can take a new language and learn it within two
weeks because you already know most of the paradigms behind it and you only
need to learn the syntax, the libs you can look up in the documentation.

~~~
scarface74
Learning a language in two weeks is easy. Every language has its own paradigms
and way of doing things - you can write Cobol in any language.

I came in as a dev lead with “database developers” who were just learning C#.
They wrote C# just like they wrote SQL - one long program in the main method.

Learning a language is not difficult. Learning that you don’t have to write
your JSON yourself and you should use a library, learning the difference
between structured logging and non structured logging and the libraries that
are out there for each. Learning any framework is going to take longer than
“two weeks”. Just because you know the syntax doesn’t mean you can write
maintainable software. Get in front of C compiler and just “learn the syntax”
and see how that works out.

Anyone who comes out of computer science thinking they can hit the ground
running as a developer for any company, says a lot about the current state of
“computer science” degrees and why so many “developers” can’t do FizzBuzz.

------
pkaler
The researchers in the article compared German university students with German
vocational students. Maybe that is the case for those groups.

I was born and raised in Northern Canada. I'm ethnically India. University is
where I first met a gay person and realized they are regular people just like
me. Where I made my first Asian, Black, and Jewish friends. Where I first
started reading philosophy and classic literature. Where I first realized that
I could start a business myself.

I have a degree in computer science but took many liberal arts classes.

Maybe university isn't useful to the upper-middle class other than for
signalling? ‍️¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
mushufasa
nice catch. if the article focuses on european higher education, it may not
apply to north american systems, which aim for breadth. my understanding is
that even in university, european students pick a track before matriculation
and keep to it.

~~~
kuerbel
I'm German. We have a three tiered school system: the lowest one where you go
to school for, iirc, 9 years is usually bound for people who are ... more
hands on and later do an apprenticeship as a e.g. hairdresser. Middle tier is
where you go to school for 10 years and do an apprenticeship as e.g.
accounting clerk or IT system specialist. The higher tier is where you get the
Abitur. It's mandatory that you have this if you want to go to university, but
it takes 13 years to get one. You pick 2 classes that are maybe equivalent to
AP classes in us high school. You can also pick the rest of your classes, but
they require less time. E.g. mine where math and English.

After that you have a choice between two different kinds of universities. One
is more traditional, but you pick the subject before hand and maybe you have
some classes that you can choose for yourself but usually they have to have
something to do with your main subject, e.g. some electrical engineering
classes if you study mechanical engineering.

Then there is the university of applied sciences, which is a mix between an
apprenticeship and university, with a more hands on approach. It's where you
would study software engineering instead of computer science.

That's the reason our universities are more focused, we cover lots of ground
in different topics at school.

~~~
dgellow
Just a detail to add to what you said, the school system is defined by the
Bundesland, meaning there can be differences through the country.

~~~
em-bee
not at the broad level that kuerbel described it. that's pretty much the same
all over germany and even true in austria for the most part.

don't know about other european countries though.

------
unknownkadath
Link to abstract:

[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976188062...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797618806298)

At first glance, it seems like the Economist article is drawing broader and
more politically charged conclusions than the original authors. On an initial
skimming of the whole article in "Psychological Science," I can find no
similar sweeping statements about college education anywhere. In fact, the
word "broaden" does not appear in the text of the published article at all.

Compare the Economist title with the actual article abstract below:

\-------------------

School or Work? The Choice May Change Your Personality

Abstract:

According to the social-investment principle, entering new environments is
associated with new social roles that influence people’s behaviors. In this
study, we examined whether young adults’ personality development is
differentially related to their choice of either an academic or a vocational
pathway (i.e., entering an academic-track school or beginning vocational
training). The personality constructs of interest were Big Five personality
traits and vocational-interest orientations. We used a longitudinal study
design and propensity-score matching to create comparable groups before they
entered one of the pathways and then tested the differences between these
groups 6 years later. We expected the vocational pathway to reinforce more
mature behavior and curtail investigative interest. Results indicated that
choosing the vocational compared with the academic pathway was associated with
higher conscientiousness and less interest in investigative, social, and
enterprising activities.

------
chasing
As with many things, probably has a ton to do with the specific student.
University broadened my mind incredibly and I’m quite thankful for it. But
then, I tended towards multidisciplinary programs with subjects I didn’t
naturally excel at. And I had good professors and smart peers.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I dropped out - I’m a fairly successful and happy computer engineer.

Generally anti-college in terms of 13th grade, but I agree this depends
entirely on the student.

I was bored to tears with the entry computer science, but really liked
anthropology and geolgogy. Seems like they were mind-broadening.

~~~
chasing
I consider myself a successful software developer who enjoys his work. I took
one single programming class as an undergrad and it sucked. Everything else
was literature, philosophy, art, with some science mixed in when I could. I
think that decision served me well. It also made me less appealing to people
hiring for boring positions and much more appealing to those trying to find
smart weirdos who thought differently. My first real college programming job
was with people who specifically did not hire out of the CS department. It was
awesome!

~~~
mroche
> My first real college programming job was with people who specifically did
> not hire out of the CS department.

Not going to lie, that sounds incredibly counter-intuitive. However, as long
as the people have the right skills or mindset I don’t see the issue. There
may be a lacking in deeper underlying systems knowledge, though.

~~~
docbrown
>However, as long as the people have the right skills or mindset I don’t see
the issue.

That is exactly what they’re looking for, regardless of degree type. Without
digging up all the numbers, soft skills in the hiring process are important to
a great deal——as long as that person is able to understand the on-the-job
training you’re going to give them.

You can have person A and B interviewing for a PM position.

Person A graduated from CS dept, 3.9cGPA, introvert, no experience.

Person B graduated from Literature dept, 3.8cGPA, study abroad, sociable, 5
years work experience with deadlines.

In my opinion, I would take person B over A. I’ll tell you why, though.

Person A has (1) shown they are able to understand different cultures and
environments—as the company may be Fortune 500 or non-profit, the workforce
can be diverse. (2) they have shown they can take responsibility and (3) be
willing to engage with others, coworkers in particular and (4) is willing to
get out of their comfort zone by wandering into CS.

Person B will bring me (1) experience but they may not be able to communicate
effectively with coworkers, managers, customers, etc. due to their
personality. They may know how to fix a problem but (2) they’re personality
makes them get confrontational when you say there’s a better way than their
way. In the end, the amount of worry I’d have with how they’d work with my
other employees is much greater than the time it’ll take me to take an
apprentice and teach them how and what I want and need them to learn.

~~~
ams6110
The five years of work experience is going to override almost everything else
about either candidate.

------
beaner
Outside of specific academic focus, nearly everyone I know who has graduated a
US university thinks basically the same way.

~~~
shoo
Jeff Schmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" is a great read about this kind of
thing --
[http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/](http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/)

Here's some discussion from a review of Disciplined Minds by Brian Martin:

> Jeff Schmidt provides an answer in his book Disciplined Minds:
> professionals, including teachers, are selected and molded to have
> politically and intellectually subordinate attitudes, thereby making their
> creative energies available to the system. In short, "professional education
> and employment push people to accept a role in which they do not make a
> significant difference, a politically subordinate role." (p. 2).

> The first step in Schmidt’s argument is the claim that professionals -
> including police, doctors, lawyers, teachers and many others - think less
> independently than nonprofessionals. He cites opinion polls taken during the
> Vietnam war showing that support for the war was greater among those with
> more higher education.

> Schmidt argues that what really makes an individual a professional is not
> technical knowledge, but rather "ideological discipline."

> A key to creating docile professionals is professional training. Through
> their training, budding professionals learn to orient their intellectual
> effort to tasks assigned to them. Schmidt has a wonderful expression for
> this: "assignable curiosity." Children are naturally curious about all sorts
> of things. Along the road to becoming a professional, they learn how to
> orient this curiosity to tasks assigned by others.

[https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html](https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html)

The journalist Lyn Gerry read and recorded most of the chapters in the book,
they can be listened to here:
[https://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Disciplined_Minds](https://www.unwelcomeguests.net/Disciplined_Minds)

~~~
sonnyblarney
This insight should be more commonly accepted.

That said - just like in Science - the consensus among thoughtfully educated
people is probably 'more correct'.

Where things can go wrong ... is when the systematic class is wrong, or where
there is a value shift.

Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world
through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could
happen. Most people have an affinity for their culture and a few extra cents
on off their pint (and massively more surpluses in the pockets of bankers) is
not going to change their mind over it.

Doctors are a funny bunch in this regard: all of them seem to me to be the
most intelligent, boring folks! They have to be in a way extremely small-c
conservative, very orthodox, there's no experimentation or zaniness with human
bodies. The system, and frankly the work (years of total work, oversight,
convention) keeps them in the mould. And frankly, they have no reason to try
to go outside it either, once inside the mould, it's just too lucrative to
leave.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Populism is a super example of this: educated business type see the world
through economic lenses, and can't for a second understand how 'Brexit' could
happen.

The same thing comes up whenever we talk about splitting states or
cities/towns in the US. Some people are like "why would you want that, it's
not in your economic interest" and the people who want whatever the split is
to happen reply "we'd rather be poor and in control of ourselves"

~~~
sonnyblarney
The fundamental difference is that states and towns generally are not
ethnocentric. Nations usually are.

Germany in the EU with open migration may possibly present an existential
challenge to the nature of what Germany is in the long term. Some people don't
care, some people want that, some are against it.

Whereas making SF Bay area '1 city' would be a matter of pragmatism, not much
more.

Also - there's actually scant evidence that federalization is better for
everyone in the long run, it depends a lot on many things. I actually believe
the EEC with slightly better rules for movement would be fundamentally better
than the EU - even in raw economic terms. But that Bay Area - with the right
leadership - would be better off.

------
sammosummo
Grew up in a medium sized mostly working-class town in Northern England. My
whole childhood I felt like an outsider, nobody cared about the things I cared
about, whenever I spoke it was met with complete silence or indifference. I
thought there was something wrong with me at a fundamental level, perhaps
autism. First day at uni (19 yo) I stayed in my room most of the night,
terrified. Finally summoned up the courage and socialised. Week later I
stepped out of my room into the communal kitchen. A conversation was going on
and someone asked my opinion. It suddenly occurred to me that that had never
happened to me before entire life. I wasn’t some weirdo everyone was scared of
or didn’t understand. Normal person, normal interests; just different to the
tiny society I gre up in. Now married 35 living in Boston at junior faculty at
Harvard Medical School, that tiny moment in the dorm kitchen shaped my whole
life for the better, and university is the reason.

~~~
dingaling
> and university is the reason.

But not the sole mechanism by which you could have gained that experience.

Prior to uni I spent time drifting around youth hostels in western Europe.
That was affordable even for someone from a Belfast council estate. I bunked
with people from literally all around the World and learned more about
humanity than I had done in 18/years prior.

Within weeks of starting a job I was sent to Illinois for three months and
again had an eye-opening in blue-collar American culture. The Simpsons
suddenly made sense.

In contrast for me uni was boring, partisan and segregated. It even had an
International Students' Centre where they could congregate away from the
locals, because their parents were paying huge fees whilst we were there on
meagre Giro grant cheques. I suppose I learned about capitalism there.

I'm keener for my kids to do six years in the military before even thinking of
uni.

------
wallace_f
In short, the study suggests university does not change personality or
attitudes; however while vocational training increases conscientiousness, it
decreases investigative or enterprising traits.

Would it be wrong to say it sounds like a lot of people doing vocational
training end up just wanting to do a good job and get on with enjoying their
lives? Is that a title more in-line with the article, and not even surprising?

As for _broadening the mind,_ I believe there is an absolute derth in
teaching/testing for those kinds of critical thinking skills (willingness or
ability to question ones own assumptions or biases).

~~~
lucidone
Tangential, but from my experience, "critical thinking" meant regurgitating
whatever views the professor espoused. I had a lot of views produced by the
bubble of my campus. Now out in the world, I wouldn't want to hang out with
myself from that time.

------
coleifer
I wish I had better critical thinking skills when I was in college. I'm an
English lit major with a minor in Russian lit. In the years since I've reread
a lot of my favorite books, and I see a hell of a lot more than I did then. I
think I was too immature, too inexperienced with life, to understand about
suffering, joy, or love (and wayyy too self centered). College got me started,
though, so I'm grateful for having been exposed to so much great literature,
even if my understanding was a bit shallow compared to now.

------
bwrobrts
Hi folks, as one of the co-authors of said paper, I'd like to share some of my
thoughts about the write up and the study. First, IMHO the Economist article
does not reflect what we reported or tested. We did not test whether
university "broadened the mind." There are many ways, as a researcher, that I
would test that including some of the ideas expressed here, such as examining
changes in ideology, changes in knowledge of different theoretical and
knowledge systems. We didn't do that. The closest we came was testing changes
in openness to experience. But even that measure is not a good proxy for
"broadening the mind." Second, the changes found in the vocational sample
aren't necessarily negative. When people decide on what they want to do with
their lives, they naturally diminish their interests in alternatives that
reflect paths they have chosen against. We've found this pattern in other
samples, including college samples and view this as a natural, if not healthy
development. Third , while the changes found in the vocational sample may be
construed as "different" the other way to view them is that they are the
changes that the college sample will eventually experience. They just don't
have to because of the opportunities for exploration and not choosing offered
by university life. In closing, we appreciate your interest in the study. We
have registered our objections about the way the article was written up with
the Economist. The entire process was botched in our opinion--in part because
of a breakdown of QC at the Economist and in part because we were not as
timely in our responses to the writers queries as they needed us to be given
their tight deadline.

------
iamben
University let me grow up. I had three 'safe' years to learn to be a better
adult, make some bad decisions (and some good ones), meet new people etc etc.

I was a really young 18. Going straight into work would have been a baptism of
fire.

I'm not sure my degree has helped a whole bunch, but I don't regret the time I
was there.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/pAnYr](http://archive.is/pAnYr)

------
iandev
The title is a bit sensational. The bigger picture is in the first paragraph.

> However, it was not the case that university broadened minds. Rather, work
> seemed to narrow them.

Basically, going to university doesn't make your mind broader, but not going
to university does result in a narrower mind.

~~~
shanghaiaway
Wrong. You're misreading

~~~
iandev
> those who had chosen the vocational route showed marked drops in interest in
> tasks that are investigative and enterprising in nature.

Am I incorrect to think that this is narrowing of the vocational route?

------
mettamage
University in most part didn't broaden my mind when I really think about it.
But I was curious what the pinnacle of formal education was, a level that no
one else in my family has been able to achieve. I'd say it's partly sham (when
I studied business and psychology), partly lived up to its standards (when I
studied the most difficult courses in CS).

The most mind broadening experience I had was taking one course in Buddhism. I
did this outside of my degree, the course doesn't show up on any of my
diploma's. That truly was a mind broadening experience. That experience was
also unique unfortunately.

It was a mixed bag, but ultimately worth it.

------
mirimir
I'm not at all surprised that vocational training and work narrows the mind.
Many jobs require focusing on required skills. Initially, the goal at
university is exploring many options. Maybe that's doesn't involve broadening
the mind. But it certainly puts off the narrowing. Once you declare a major,
however, and especially in grad school, you're definitely on the narrowing
path. Because you're merely human, and need to focus.

------
solatic
At least from the article, the study seems to be too-small-n and does not
control for participants' socioeconomic backgrounds, nor for the environment
where participants ended up (i.e. participants with degrees who move to a city
after university may be more open-minded than participants without degrees who
move to rural villages where less diversity and fewer opportunities exist).

Not sure how much stock should be put in these results.

------
akhilcacharya
Honestly, I broadened my perspectives more at community college than at my
state school, and that was just general education classes.

------
discoball
In the formal setting of an educational institution you get to engage your
mind in analytical and creative thinking in a variety of subjects and on daily
basis. Such a consistent process does broaden the mind, for sure, but maybe
not every mind and not under some circumstances.

The title comes across as controversial subjectivism for the sake of
attracting attention.

------
purplezooey
The question isn't whether university broadens the mind, but what is the
alternative and does it broaden it more.

------
themodelplumber
Vocational work got you feeling over-conscientious and under-enterprising?

No worries! Your midlife crisis awaits. :-)

------
2bitencryption
I disagree with this in my own case. At my university, I was bombarded by so
many different beliefs and worldviews that it forced me to reevaluate my own.
My values didn't change much, but I certainly become more accepting of
differences.

~~~
bytematic
Ya, I bet a lot of people who grew up in cities don't have the same
experience.

------
perseusprime11
Going to school, college and a university only conditions your mind to be a
mediocre player. In the absence of great teachers, all we do is acquire
knowledge through out life and apply it wrongly when time comes.

------
jimnotgym
Open minds can be broadened by experience. Closed minds stay closed.

------
rexarex
I took a inter-disciplinary arts degree and combined with a semester abroad it
completely changed the way I looked at stuff. Maybe if studied engineering it
would be different.

------
james_s_tayler
Sure as hell broadened my mind. Getting broader ever since.

------
cm2012
I wish this was more common knowledge.

~~~
tmh88j
Is going to university to "broaden the mind" a common sentiment? Maybe that's
a European thing, because the mindset in the US is that college is a step
towards a good career, which unfortunately doesn't seem to hold as much weight
these days for a growing number of fields.

~~~
simonsarris
> Maybe that's a European thing, because the mindset in the US is that college
> is a step towards a good career,

Really? In the USA, every single time I get into a discussion of the pros and
cons of college with friends (or this week family) it starts out "they need to
in order to get a good job!" and end with "well... how are they going to
become a more well rounded person if they don't go?"

It's like clockwork, the unavoidable striking of midnight when they toss the
ROI premise for the broaden the mind premise.

~~~
tmh88j
>it starts out "they need to in order to get a good job!" and end with
"well... how are they going to become a more well rounded person if they don't
go?"

I've honestly never heard anyone say that outside of movies and tv. Maybe I
don't come from a posh enough of a background that "becoming well rounded" is
an option of equal consideration alongside earning a sustainable income. Sure,
they're not always mutually exclusive, but let's be real; most people are
going to college nowadays for a better career, not to be a renaissance
man/woman. I would consider myself to be well positioned now after going to
college for engineering and having almost a decade of work experience under my
belt, but even the thought of going back to college for a subject I'm
passionate about is just a pipe dream. It's expensive, time consuming and I'll
probably have no pragmatic use for what I learn without a career change. I
barely had enough time while in undergrad to focus on the core material, let
alone add on an extra 25% workload to become "well rounded". Sure, I had to
take some "intro to _______" courses, but I hardly consider that any sort of
in depth knowledge. Is that what people consider a well rounded college
experience? If so, I disagree.

~~~
simonsarris
> I've honestly never heard anyone say that outside of movies and tv.

I think that's part of the problem: Most of the people I'm talking to aren't
doing a serious pro/con or staking out their future earnings based on their
majors[1], or doing a serious evaluation of whether or not they come from a
background that can afford such a posh take. Yet they are still repeating
things they've essentially heard on movies and TV, probably to their
detriment.

> most people are going to college nowadays for a better career, not to be a
> renaissance man/woman

I think you may be too optimistic or personally realistic when others are not
so. It is much worse: Most people are going because movies/TV/peer pressure
tell them they should go. They might say they're doing it for a better career,
but they haven't thought that far ahead, not really. If they had, total US
student debt would look very different.

[1] Lots of psych and communications. The people I talked to who are doing
serious "is this worth it" calculations are doing nursing, or when I was in an
engineering school, obviously that.

~~~
tmh88j
>Most people are going because movies/TV/peer pressure tell them they should
go. They might say they're doing it for a better career, but they haven't
thought that far ahead, not really

I agree, but that's even further away from going college to broaden the mind
than for a lucrative career.

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qwerty456127
What does?

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bhengaij
Broadening the mind, no- opposite effect. It's a very group think environment.

You do get better problem solving skills though and a new approach to looking
at problems.

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eBombzor
Paywall :(

Seems like an opinion piece from the title, anyone care to share a summary?

edit nvm guess its only a paywall on mobile

~~~
RidingPegasus
Not opinion, it's a writeup of a German study.

[https://outline.com/YdvJu4](https://outline.com/YdvJu4)

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loblollyboy
But it’s pretty fuckin fun bro. Seriously tho, although I had to do a lot more
growing up after college, it helped me grow up. If I were forced to go pay for
stuff instead of having a card with MascotBucks that covered my needs (like
now) I might have grown up faster, but I’d do it again

~~~
anontechworker
Comments written like this are why I left reddit.

