Lowering Expectations?

As a most-likely-soon-to-be-unemployed third year law student, I find myself asking whether we are encouraging too many students to get college degrees. There are plenty of necessary fields where an apprenticeship program or other training is what people really need. That B.A. in English may look nice on the wall, but is it really useful? (I should know; I've got one hanging on my wall. I'm looking at it right now).

There are only so many job opportunities in certain professional fields. Law is probably the most obvious example of this; academia is another. If all we're encouraging young people to do is spend four years (or more) taking random classes, partying, and learning about "diverse cultures," while at the same time obtaining few useful job skills and racking up huge amounts of debt, are we really doing anyone a favor?

My dad and I actually disagree on this point. He thinks there is intrinsic value in an education, by which he means a broad liberal arts education. I would agree with him, except I have thousands of dollars worth of debt from that liberal arts education. That education is worthless unless you can get a job to pay for it.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have high standards. Obviously, we need to encourage students to reach their full potential. Currently, however, more and more jobs are requiring Bachelor's degrees when that type of education really isn't needed to do the job. Qualified people who chose not to get a four-year degree, perhaps because they didn't want to or couldn't pay for it, are being denied jobs which they could certainly do. College is becoming a trap.

Personal Responsibility?

This past week, a woman sued Google for providing "dangerous" walking directions via Google Maps. (See the WSJ Law Blog article here). Apparently she was led onto a busy highway and then hit by a car.

Aside from the ridiculous aspects of the actual legal claim, there seems to be a bigger problem here. Are we so dependent on technology that all common sense goes out the window? If I saw that I was about to walk onto a *highway* I would turn around and get new directions. People have a mistaken impression that technology is perfect and can help them accomplish everything. Relying on this false assumption has caused too many of us to use our brains less, resulting in situations like this one.

Why Celery Tower?

When I was in tenth grade, my Physical Science class was split into groups and instructed to built towers from celery and toothpicks. The group with the tallest tower that stayed standing the longest would win ice cream treats. The teams that attempted to utilize physics principles didn't have much success - celery doesn't seem to follow laws of physics. My group, on the other hand, decided the whole assignment was inherently stupid, so we just stuck toothpicks and celery together randomly to make the tallest structure possible.

We won the ice cream treats.

We won not because we had actually learned anything about physics, but rather because we had achieved a goal. Education today is less about learning and more about achievement, and this is causing the increasing mediocrity of America. My intent is to comment on instances of mediocrity - hence the title "Celery Tower."