This post is part of a series of posts originally written for my blog at Forbes.com that I’m copying to my personal site, so I have a (more) stable (-ish) archive of them. This is just the text of the original post, from August 2016, without the images that appeared with it (which were mostly fairly generic photos of college campuses).
The calendar has just flipped over to August, which means we’re climbing up to one of the two big annual peaks of college stress. The first, calendar-wise, comes in February/March when admissions departments send out acceptance letters and students have to make a choice; the second is in late summer, when those students confront the reality of actually starting college. (There’s a third stress peak in late fall when students are deciding where to apply, but it’s small compared to the other two…) As someone who is prone to offering unsolicited advice (one, two, three, four, five previous advice posts), this seems like an opportune moment to write something taking an extremely big-picture view of the whole business.
A letter from my college alumni association recently reminded me that I’m rapidly closing in on 25 years since my college graduation, and I’ve been a college professor for fifteen years now. Which puts me in sort of a weird position, both looking back nearly a quarter-century at my own education, and forward at what my students will be facing in the future. Given that context, what I’m talking about here isn’t advice for the first year, or even the full span of a college education. I want to offer some thoughts on what it is that you get out of going to college in the long term– on the time scale of a career, not one job. That’s a hard scale to think about when you’re in your mid-forties, let alone your late teens, but since events and decisions made when you’re 19 have a huge effect on your life when you’re 45, it’s worth trying to take that view now and again.
(And because this piece will inevitably reflect my own background and biases, let me state right up front that what I’ll say here primarily applies to “traditional” students: recent high-school graduates heading off to a four-year college for the first time. Some of these points will very obviously be less relevant to, say, a 30-year-old heading back to school after a stint in the military, but I think some of it will still be useful, even if just as an aid in understanding the psychology of the annoying kids in your classes…)
So, to put it bluntly, what’s the point of this whole business? That is, why do we send kids off to college? What is it that the students get out of this whole thing? As someone who has spent more years in the world of higher education than out of it, I think there are four main things that students should expect to get out of going to college.
1) Subject-Specific Knowledge
The most obvious outcome of a college education is detailed knowledge about some specific subject. If you get a four-year degree, that degree will be in something: Physics, Political Science, English Literature, Business, Art History, Journalism, Mechanical Engineering, whatever. At some point in your college career, you’ll have to declare a major (at least one), and if nothing else, people you deal with in the future will expect you to have some specific and useful knowledge in that subject.
So, if you’re a student facing college, make sure to give this choice careful thought. Pick something that suits your interests and skills– if you struggle with math, you probably shouldn’t try for a degree in theoretical physics, and if you can’t draw a straight line using a vector graphics program, studio art’s probably not for you. And once you make the choice, you should commit to it, and make sure to actually learn about that subject.
This is less of an issue in science and engineering, where major programs tend to be rigidly hierarchical until fairly late in the sequence, but every program has some elements of free choice. Make sure that the choices you make are getting you something besides an easy grade– it’s almost always more useful to take a hard elective in a sub-topic you don’t know much about than an easier class that you can just skate through.
Choice of major subject is, of course, the surface level at which lots of college discussions happen– politicians and parents will try to push students toward more obviously “applied” areas. The most frequent question I get from parents at Admissions events is “Will she be able to get a job with this degree?” While this is a legitimate area of concern, it’s also somewhat overrated, as you can tell from the fact that I’ve made it only one element of this list. Major selection is important, but as long as you pick something and commit to it– don’t be one of those students entering your final semester with a random grab-bag of courses asking the Registrar and Dean to find some program they can be made to fit so you graduate on time (yes, we get those, with depressing regularity)– it’s not that important. What really matters for building a career is that you demonstrate the ability to acquire coherent and in-depth knowledge of some subject to a level that merits a college degree.
2) Learning Skills
Even the most rigidly tracked majors will leave some room for outside classes, and all but the most narrowly focused technical schools will require you to take some courses in areas outside your major. A lot of students view these as capricious, annoying requirements to make their lives harder, and try to find a way to meet the minimum standard with minimum effort, but this is a mistake. Classes outside your major aren’t a stupid waste of time, they’re an essential part of college education, and a foundation for future success.
It’s not just that science has useful lessons for non-scientists or that scientists benefit from arts and literature, though those specific bits of knowledge are important. The larger benefit of these classes comes from learning how to learn.
That may sound annoyingly circular, but the point is that different fields of study necessarily involve acquiring and sharing knowledge in different ways. Some subjects are built around lectures and homework problems that duplicate examples from lecture; others are built around class discussions and open-ended papers. Some classes demand mostly reading and thinking; others force you to make stuff.
When you eventually graduate and get a job, one of these modes will probably be the most immediately important, which is why you major in a specific subject, with its particular set of standard practices. But on the time scale of a career, unless you plan to retire from the exact same job you start in, you’ll eventually need to operate in new ways, and different contexts. And that’s where those non-major classes help. Being forced to think, act, and learn in the characteristic manner of several different fields, not just your narrow major area, helps build some flexibility that will serve you well down the road.
So, the concrete advice here regarding non-major classes (“general education” or “distribution” requirements) is: Take these classes seriously, and try to stretch a little. Don’t just take classes or professors with a reputation for being easy, take ones that have a reputation for being good, even if they’re difficult. And take at least a few things that are very far from your major area.
This may not seem to have an immediate payoff, but it’s a good investment for the future. A random theater class taken as a sophomore probably won’t help you land your first job, but the extra flexibility you gain from studying a range of subjects will help as you move on to the second (and third, and so on…) and have to master a new set of skills and responsibilities.
3) Adult-ing Skills
Even the most rigorous academic program will involve large stretches of time spent outside of class, and even factoring in homework and sleep won’t fill all the hours of the day. In a lot of discussions, this part of the college experience gets treated as ancillary at best. Non-academic activities are talked about as a distraction from “real” education, if not an active impediment to it. In fact, though, this is one of the most important parts of a college education.
This is the item that’s most specific to “traditional” students, most of whom will be living away from home and family for the first time. And for a lot of those students, what happens in the classroom will be less of a challenge than managing time and activities outside of a purely academic context. Setting and maintaining a reasonable schedule of classes, studying, and other activities; managing personal relationships with other students, and navigating the various distractions that come with those; just keeping themselves properly fed and clothed when parents aren’t around to do laundry and make dinner. Those are all skills that are essential for a fully-functioning adult member of society, and those are all things that “traditional” students learn in college.
Now, you might reasonably ask whether you need to send tens of thousands of dollars to some academic institution to acquire these, rather than, say, picking them up while drawing a salary at a job or doing military service. And in that financial sense, everything but the classes is absolutely secondary– most of the price tag is for the facilities and faculty needed for formal education.
At the same time, though, the residential-life side of college provides an important safety net for people who are still learning how to be adults. And that makes a big difference– exceeding your time-management skills for a semester or so might hurt your GPA, but you’re not going to get fired or starve. A typical dorm room might get a little messy, but living in space maintained by a college or university prevents a fall into the risk and squalor you can easily find on the private housing market. And so on. Mistakes made while figuring out how to manage life on your own are much less likely to wreck your future, or anyone else’s.
The concrete advice for students here is to keep in mind that learning to function as an autonomous adult is part of the process. You’re not quite standing entirely on your own, but you should at least make the attempt– your parents shouldn’t be swooping in to fix problems on a regular basis.
Obviously, there’s a fine line to be walked here– self-sufficiency is the goal, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything entirely on your own. That’s also part of becoming an adult– learning to recognize when you need somebody else’s help to get through whatever’s going on. Fortunately, a college or university environment comes with a lot of people who can do just that– faculty and staff who can help you choose classes and navigate academic requirements, residential staff who can help resolve problems with dorms and facilities, counselors and medical staff who can help with physical and mental health. And you’ll be surrounded by fellow students who can help in a more informal way with all that stuff. Which brings us to the last item:
4) Personal Relationships
While most discussions of higher education focus on the formal and physical aspects– the classes, libraries, and laboratories, and also dorms, gyms, and dining halls– in a lot of respects, the most important part is the people. Looking back 25 years to my time in college, the things I learned in class are important (especially as my day job involved teaching some of those same things to a new generation of students), but the most enduring influence on my life is probably social. A major chunk of what I got out of going to college is found in the relationships I’ve built with people I first met during those years.
There is, of course, a formal educational component to this– it’s important to have good relationships with faculty who will serve as references down the line when you need a job or apply to grad school. And this often comes up in discussions of higher education, particularly more elite colleges and universities, in a sort of cynical sense– the idea of being able to tap into “old-boy” alumni networks for favors and jobs and so on.
While those things are real and important, the biggest impact is often less quantifiable and more personal. The people you meet in college will influence you for the rest of your life, whether you’re talking about romantic partners, roommates and teammates, or just people you sometimes hang out with. They can be useful contacts when finding a new job, or investors in your great idea, or just someone to catch up with when happen to be in the same city. You’ll go to their weddings, they’ll sleep on your couches, you’ll randomly bump into them in airports and say “Holy shit, how’ve you been?” They’ll be friends and mentors, there to offer a helping hand or a sympathetic ear, and you’ll do the same for them.
(Again, this is not stuff that you can only get at college; you can meet people and build relationships if you just go straight to work, too. And some of this is just a function of a particular time of life– I know people who aren’t really in touch with anyone they met as undergrads, but who still have great friends made in the same time period through other activities. It’s part of the package of things you can get by going to college in the “traditional” manner, though, so makes sense to include here.)
As with any social phenomenon, exactly who will turn out to be important to you, and how, is impossible to predict. My concrete advice here, then, is just to remember that the people around you matter. Which is not to say that you should stress out about the long-term potential of every social interaction– really, don’t do that– just that you should treat people well, and not just in terms of immediate utility, because those relationships might matter someday. And if you’re just keeping your head down, going to class and doing your assignments with minimal interaction, you might be missing out on one of the most influential aspects of going to college in the first place.
So, there’s my really big-picture, long-term advice about the most important benefits of going to college, for those heading that way in the near future. It’s awfully easy to get hung-up on short-term anxieties, and details that really won’t make that much difference. Try not to lose too much sleep over small stuff, though– you won’t be able to completely, but try. You’re looking to gain some specific subject knowledge, mental flexibility and ability to learn, basic life skills, and solid personal relationships. Do those things well, and you’ll have a good experience, and a good base for a successful life.