by Sebastian Ramshackle III

Created on: December 29, 2006   Last Updated: June 06, 2009

Going off to college is an exciting time. Students head off to College or University hoping to come out of the experience with a passport to a secure future in a job that they'll enjoy. That's all very well, but its a huge mistake to look on the sole purpose of going to College or University as simply being to get a job. students who take this type of intrumentalist approach frequently find a sense of disappointment when they complete. Why is that?

Primarily because they end up choosing a course or programme of study largely because they think there will be a job at the end of it, rather than because its a subject they will enjoy and want to learn all about. Much better, unless someone really has always wanted to be a catering manager, to do a general degree in a broad subject that will educate the sudent to think in a structured way, and then choose the type of job they want to do (which, at 21+, may well be different from the one they'd have chosen at 17-18) and, perhaps, do a further year's conversion postgraduate study.

Just as important as the chosen degree programme, however, is the quality of the contacts a student makes whilst they're studying. When successful parents send their offspring to the prestigious universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard, its not simply (or even largely) because they'll be taught any better than they would at 'lesser' universities. No. Its because they know their children will have a chance to break into the social networks that will lead to higher-paid jobs. That's what people are paying for at these 'better' universities - access to success. (Its also the basis of the 'College' and 'Greek' systems in the UK and the US respectively.)

These networks operate, not on the basis of academic success, but on social and cultural capital: that is, social skills and how well someone gets on with those who are in positions to help them move up the ladder. Hence, students should seek to identify the people who are most likely to help them get on, see how they speak and copy them to a certain extent. Students should watch to see what they're interested in and learn about those things. They should also find out where they go and hang out there.

Or, and this is what I'd recommend, students could just be themselves, take advantage of the opportunities doing a degree gives to develop themselves and their critical faculties, take advantage of the social opportunities that come their way, and allow themselves to change as they move through their years of learning. (If students don't change while they're doing a degree, they're doing something dreadfully wrong.) Students should become their new selves and above all given it will take at least 3 years of their lives, enjoy the experience. Its the one time in a person's life where they get to pursue their own thoughts in an environment where learning and development is supported and the person can develop at leisure. They should be encouraged to make the most of it.

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