What, in your opinion, is the purpose of a University or College?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I already checked with the Dope Bosses, and they said it was ok for me to do this little poll, and seeing as how you all are the most learned, well-spoken, as well as honest group of people I know, I thought I’d pose this question to you.

I am working on a paper that is intended to define the purpose of a University or College - is it to train students for specific jobs or careers, or is it to educate them in more general knowledge and skills?

College students, recent grads, what are your thoughts? Did you learn specific skill sets or was it a personal growing experience? Did you learn a profession, or did you learn how to think critically, and THEN define what you wanted to be when you “grew up”? Was it an opportunity to check out a whole lot of different things until you found one you loved, or did you focus on one? Why? Did you form/define/discover your “bliss”/train for your career from the growth you experienced while in college, or did you go to college (or university) for the specific purpose of learning certain things?

Teachers, Bosses, Hiring Bodies, Heads of State, whatever - what are YOUR thoughts? What are recent grads applying for jobs showing you? Specific skill sets? The ability to think critically? Basic communication skills? What is the most important thing you look for in hiring College Grads? GPA? Specific skill sets? The ability to adapt and learn no matter what their degree may be in?

In my own opinion, their (Colleges/Universities) purpose is to educate students in general knowledge and skills, while at the same time affording the opportunity to focus in on a specific job or career, and the knowledge and skill sets necessary to do it. But, I’m having a hard time formulating this into any kind of thesis statement. I need some outside input of real people who have been there, done that, and frankly, since I’m so old and just starting the college thing, have nowhere to come from; I have no point of reference. That’s why I need your help.

Were you happy with what you studied? Did it get you where you wanted to go? If it didn’t, what did you do to change that (if anything)?

You all have been there, done that, and probably have t-shirts to show for it, (sorry to be redundant); can I get YOUR input and experience on this question?

I’m sure there will be many someones I will want to quote in my paper, but before using anyone’s words, I’ll email you first and get permission, and be cited in the form you wish to be cited in, so you don’t have to worry about being plagiarized. I’ve got a perfect 4.0 now, so don’t worry, I won’t mess that up by stealing. :slight_smile: I don’t want anyone to think that I’m “harvesting homework” here; I just want varied, personal opinions from a diverse group of people. It might help me formulate my thesis statement, and provide real backup for my research. Thanks (in arrogance - I’m assuming I might get it) in advance. :slight_smile:

Anyway, this paper has been bothering me for some time - any help or insights you could share would be helpful.

And yes, I’ll be HAPPY to post the final paper (if y’all want to see it) complete with cites, once it’s done.

Help me, Dopers!

Please?

Pretty Please???

2

Ok, I’ve been on both sides of this - bear in mind, though that I graduated 8 years ago (although I’m now back in school at the graduate level).

** College students, recent grads, what are your thoughts? Did you learn specific skill sets or was it a personal growing experience? Did you learn a profession, or did you learn how to think critically, and THEN define what you wanted to be when you “grew up”? Was it an opportunity to check out a whole lot of different things until you found one you loved, or did you focus on one? Why? Did you form/define/discover your “bliss”/train for your career from the growth you experienced while in college, or did you go to college (or university) for the specific purpose of learning certain things?**

College, for me, was about learning who I was - the facts and figures that I learned had much less relevance than learning about myself and that I could do something well.

When I first arrived at college, I was there to get a specific set of skills with a specific goal in mind (med school). Within a year, that had changed and I changed that major several times, ultimately finishing with a history degree and no intention of applying to med school. The growth and exploration experience came to be the most important thing. This served two purposes: I learned that if you discover that you really dislike what you are doing, you can change it, and I learned to think and analyze. This, I think is the purpose of a liberal arts degree. No one really cares (except for me) about the senior thesis I wrote. What people do care about is my ability to look at a situation from a variety of viewpoints - and listen to the views of others on that same situation.

For the sciences, I think that college/university has a different goal. Someone majoring in accounting is (IMO) there to learn how to be an accountant, or a biology major is learning to be a biologist.
Teachers, Bosses, Hiring Bodies, Heads of State, whatever - what are YOUR thoughts? What are recent grads applying for jobs showing you? Specific skill sets? The ability to think critically? Basic communication skills? What is the most important thing you look for in hiring College Grads? GPA? Specific skill sets? The ability to adapt and learn no matter what their degree may be in?

I used to do hiring for branches of a small financial company. One of the most important skills someone could bring to that job was the ability to think and analyze, not just follow the rules. They could give me their GPA all day long and it could be a 4.0, and if they couldn’t think during the interview (and I did not throw those horrible “if you were a tree, what kind would you be and why?” questions at them), they weren’t going to get hired.

At the (different) job I left last year, there were specific skill sets that were needed for the department I was working in, so in those cases, GPA was a good indication of how well they’d learned those skills. Analytical skills were still important, but had to be combined with those specific skills.

Ultimately, my answer for both parts was that it depends on what your area of study is or what type of job you are applying for. For some, college is about specificity, for others it is about generalities, and the same goes for employers (at least at those where I’ve been included in the hiring process).

I hope I answered your question and didn’t just waffle my way around it…but I’m rather afraid I did just that.

3

well im at uni at the moment, just done my first year.
I can tell you my first year was about having fun and growing up, not learning.
Though I have learnt a lot.
On the whole uni must be about more general learning rather than specific skills that are suited to one job.
Otherwise my degree (Philosophy) will be largely useless!

4

I’ve also finished my first year of college, as a political science major. From what I’ve seen so far, for “social science” majors college serves as something in between “general thinking skills” and “how to do a specific job”. My hope for after college is to work in the State Department, or maybe Defense Department, or possibly go for my masters if I’m lucky enough to get my fellowship. My major doesn’t teach me how to actually do any of the things I might be doing in government - indeed, it doesn’t teach me how to do much of anything, other than think critically and write. But what it does teach me is the facts, the history and theory, that I’d need to have some sort of handle on what’s going on in politics and international relations.

So, for me, what undergraduate studies provide is depth of political science knowledge, and the ability to use that knowledge as a context I can fit current events into. College doesn’t provide job skills, nor does it provide merely general “thinking” skills - it provides a set of tools which don’t necessarily add up to “job skills”, but which you need to use to get those skills.

Or, maybe I’m full of cr*p. One or the other.

5

Reading over that post - which I suppose I should have done in preview, but what the hell, hard drive space is cheap - I realize that it’s so vague it really does seem more likely to be full of cr*p than anything else. So let me put it like this:

Before my first year of college, I had less of an interest in foreign affairs, and I saw it as just random news. Now, I’m much more interested in it, and when I read the world news, I tend to think about events in terms of the contexts of been taught. What different schools of international relations thought might say about it, what these countries might be trying to accomplish, how the US has responded to similar things in the past and might again in the future. I’ve learned to think about the “why”, not just the what, who, where, when, and how.

I really, really like college. :slight_smile:

6

I’m currently working on my general studies before transfering to pharmacy school. At the moment, its all about keeping that 4.00 so I can get as many scholarships as possible. I’m pretty pathetic, but I see college as a road block I have to get through before I can get a real career. . It is basically, in my opinion, a means to teach one how to think and how to deal with day to day situations. I have seen enough people straight out of college start a job to realize, it doesn’t teach you how to do the actual job.

7

I went to (and am going back to) college because, here in the U.S., it’s just about impossible to get a decent job without a degree. Nothing more.

8

Graduate Treaching Assistant here.

IMO, it is a bad thing that college has come to be seen as primarily a place where you learn job skills that will aid you in a career, as the OP (and 90% of undergrads) seem to think.

It is bad for the students, because the reality is that most people end up in careers that have little to do with what they studied, even when they try for them, and they end up regarding as obstacles to be avoided or quickly overcome the gen-ed-type courses that are most likely to change them as thinkers and people.

It is bad for the employers because they end up focusing on who has which pieces of paper (which may or may not equate to certain skills) rather than what sort of person this is that they are proposing to hire – job skills can be taught in OJT, but an employer can’t teach someone to be more creative, more logical, more broadminded and all of the other things that a college education can (not to say it always does).

It’s bad for education because it makes the whole enterprise bend to fit an economy: more students want to major in accounting, so we hire more accounting professors (and less in History or whatever), and don’t bother asking whether or not the world needs more accountants.

9

I learned a combination of both, although I must say I put much more emphasis on the latter than the former. I’m not saying I didn’t learn any skills. But let’s say I was suddenly struck with selective amnesia and I forgot everything I learned from college. I do not think I would be that seriously screwed up right now (although I would have suffered without that knowledge as first-year grad student). I would be screwed up, however, if I hadn’t had the “personal growth” stuff, the kind of stuff that has prepared me for graduate school and my future career as a scientist.

I majored in biology, but I did not graduate as a biologist. My school was great–don’t get me wrong–but the knowledge it covered only touched the surface. It whetted my appetite but did not satisfy the hunger (although it helped to creat the hunger). I learned the basics of science and how to do science, but I did not become an expert in biology. Interestingly, I did not become aware of how much I didn’t know until I started graduate school. College equipped me with the wherewithal and confidence to fill in the gaps, so to speak.

As for critical skills, I developed some of these in my humanity classes but not much. Undergraduate science isn’t always taught with critical thinking in mind, unfortunately.

I wanted to study biology when I started college but I didn’t really know what to do. I figured I would teach if I didn’t know what to do by the time I graduated. It was during my second year when I was introduced to research and I started on the present path of my life. If I hadn’t taken a particular class taught by a particular professor during a particular semester, I would not be living in NJ right now, a few months away from getting my Ph.D. Shivers run through my spine when I think about that. So yes, college was what put me on my present career path. My advice to any college student is to not let self-doubt or skepticism keep you from going after once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with this. Is there a sentiment out there that opposes this view?

10

Grad student and freshman English teacher here. (Note to any students who may be reading this: The disjointed ramblings that follow should not be taken as a model of how to structure a freshman English essay. This is what happens when we drink and write.)

I’m a believer in the old-fashioned idea that college should provide a gentleman’s education (which does not, of course, imply that such an education should be restricted to students of a particular social class, or to men). The institution’s purpose is not preparing students for a career, but teaching them how to use their leisure time in interesting and productive ways*. I’ve heard it argued, on these boards and elsewhere, that this is an unrealistic way of looking at things in a culture where most people spend most of their lives in an office. My standard response is that the scarcer leisure time becomes, the more important it is that we learn to make the most of it.

One of the best things about college is that it throws so much stuff at you – so many books, so many teaching styles, so many peers with different opinions, so many reasons to skip class on a beautiful spring day – that it forces students to think hard about their own values and priorities. Some of them hate having to deal with this, some couldn’t be happier, but in the end it doesn’t matter. All of them have to make choices about who they are.

The other cool thing about college is that everything about it is voluntary. Yes, I do realize many students are there because they think they have to be (everyone in their neighborhood is going, they want a job that requires a degree, blah blah), but the truth is that if they don’t want to be there … they aren’t really going to be there. You get out of college exactly as much intellectual energy as you put into it. I know of no other activities where the return on one’s investment is so proportionate.

*Granted, this implies all sorts of subjective value judgments, and I suppose it’s a bit arrogant to assume that going to an art museum on a Sunday afternoon is “better” than sitting at home watching cartoons, or that knowing something about the paintings is “better” than wandering aimlessly through the galleries. But hey, you did ask for opinions :slight_smile:

11

Yep. See my post and what Fretful says about “Gentleman’s education.”

12

I hate to sound waffly, but the answer is “All of the above.”

Universities and colleges do not serve one purpose, and it’s silly to try to shoehorn them into either the “Prepare for a career” purpose of the “Higher learning” purpose. They serve a number of very significant purposes, even beyond those two. If we’re spending BILLIONS of dollars on education I damn well expect colleges to do way more than just job training or “gentleman’s education.” In fact, I think it is important to note that colleges serve purposes that don’t even immediately affect students.

Some of the many purposes include:

  • Career training
  • Professional skill training (not the same thing)
  • Research and development
  • Promotion of the arts
  • Promotion of the humanities
  • Political and social change
  • Personal development and education
  • Life skills
  • Enhancement of the general level of education
  • Economic benefits of all sorts
  • Community prestige
  • Provision of products and services to the community (think of teaching hospitals)
13

I have found that my generalist, liberal arts education has prepared me far better for life and for work than would have a mere skill-based job-training sort of college degree (I do molecular biology research to pay my bills). In the real world, specialists end up doing what generalists tell them to do. Yes, the specialists may get the bigger bucks right out of the gate, but it’s the generalists who end up running the show in the long term.

14

cheddersnax, whatever you posted, it ain’t here.

I’m a college sophomore. Why am I here? To learn to be an engineer. The core classes are just perks.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy taking history and literature classes and stuff. And I like the whole dorm life. But if I could only get an engineering degree by going to trade school, then I’d be at trade school right now. While I enjoy my liberal arts classes, I love Statics and Microbiology and all that junk.

It may help to know that I have an intellectual life apart from my classes. I read everything I can get my hands on, read and participate in the threads here, and I’m hoping to do a NaNoWriMo novel this November. Also, since I’m just a sophomore, I may have a whole different view on this stuff a few years after I get out of school.

15

Colleges and universities serve a threefold purpose:

  1. To teach useful skills to large numbers of people, so that they may maintain and improve local and global quality of life

  2. To protect the tradition of scholarship, academics, and intellectualism by providing a haven for those who would practice them

  3. Football

16

I work in marketing for a financial services company. I graduated college (economics degree) back in '89. Got my MBA in '92.

I use very little of my work-related course work from either college or grad school on the job. I guess I do use the basics (understanding the concept of opportunity costs, sunk costs, the time value of money, basic accounting, etc.) But, other than that, most of what I learned is outdated.

However, my education did prepare me for job success by teaching me to think through a problem logically, to present a coherant argument, and to write clearly. Those skills are invaluable.

Aside from helping me in my career, my education has enriched my life. All those liberal arts classes that I took because I had to (or the few I took just because I thought they would be fun) are the ones in which I wish I’d paid more attention. I remember thinking “how will Art History, English Lit, European History, Music Appreciation, etc. help me in ‘the real world’ ?” Well, I know now.

There’s much more to having a rich life than having career skills. I’m glad I got the opportunity to learn at least the basics about some things that can make life colorful and interesting.

17

The purpose is pretty simple–it acts as the equivalent of a minimum-security halfway house, to ease the transition out of the penal system of public school by a combination of binge drinking, recreational chemical “experimentation”, weaning away from hasty unsafe sex in the back of cars to hasty unsafe sex in cramped dorm beds to non-hasty (but still unsafe!) sex in actual beds.

Oh, and there’s that whole education thing all these other folks are on about, too.

18

OK, so how old are you? Early 20s? The purpose of University is to teach you to think for yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. A BA shouldn’t be a passport to a job (although it seems that it is, I’m afraid). It should be a gateway to your favorite subject (whatever that is).

I see resumes almost every day. Personally, I’m not impressed with the ones that show great qualifications and not much else. I’m looking for talent. Could be a high-school dropout burger-flipper or a PhD. Don’t know.

But at least I know the BA/MA/PhD guy can WORK. It’s a start. Stay in school!

  • PW
    MA a long time ago
19

A University is a place with:

8,000 students,
40,000 seats in the football stadium,
and 3,000 parking spaces.

20

I agree with everyone else who has posted saying that teaching how to think individually and critically should come ahead of specialized job skills. I entered school when the tech boom was still in full swing, and convinced that a computer science degree would be the path to quick riches and early retirement. Now I’m in my final year, and next year I will go on graduate school in mathematics, not computer science, with the eventual goal of teaching at the college level for my entire career. Which isn’t to say that I view all of my computer science courses as irrelevant. In fact, the courses that were taught by talented and motivated professors were in some ways the most useful ones, more so than introductory level math classes, because they helped me understand the best ways to approach problems and to grasp new subject areas.