College Education—A Preparation for What?
A FEW years ago, columnist Bill Reel wrote an article that appeared in the Daily News, a New York City newspaper, in which he presented some sobering facts about college education
“What do you know after four years of higher education?” he asked. “No offense, but you don’t know much. Oh, you might know quite a lot about Romantic poets or Renaissance painters or computer technology or accounting procedures. I hope you learned enough to make a living. . . . But nobody 22 years old knows much. You haven’t lived long enough. Wisdom comes only with age. So get humble.
“You graduate from college with dreams for the future. Sadly, most of your aspirations will turn to ashes. I don’t want to demoralize you, but you might as well hear the truth: When you acquire the possessions you covet, if you acquire them, and when you achieve the successes you pursue, if you achieve them, they won’t satisfy you. Instead, at those very moments when you would expect to be reveling in triumph, you will feel empty rather than fulfilled, depressed rather than elated, agitated rather than peaceful.”
As for the materialistic temptations that would face such college graduates, Reel pointed out “that all the magazines aimed at bright, upscale, affluent young Americans—aimed, in other words, at you—are packed with ads for sleek automobiles and heady alcohol and chic clothes and elaborate stereos and exotic beauty aids. The media hope to suck you into an unceasing orgy of conspicuous consumption. They will try mightily to persuade you that you urgently require what you merely wish for. They will attempt to confuse needs and wants in your impressionable minds.
“Many of you will be seduced by these smooth media manipulators, who are expert at exploiting your defects of character. . . . Your flashy acquisitions will give you no satisfaction whatsoever. Quite the reverse, in fact. The quest for possessions is an insatiable appetite that will sap your soul.”