Education in Perspective

By Christopher Duff

“Story Time: A young guy walks into a Best Buy, finds an associate and says ‘I want to purchase a us$5,000 TV’. The clerk asks ‘Ok no problem, any idea what brand?’ ‘Nope’ he replies. The clerk asks, ‘What purpose do you want the television for, to watch movies, tv shows, browse the Internet?’ He responds and says ‘I just want a really expensive TV, just so I can hold it, and say that I have a US$5,000 TV, I may never actually use it.’ He smiles. The clerk looks at him puzzled. Doesn’t make any sense right? Most people don’t make big ticket purchases like this. We don’t normally walk into a store and ask for the most expensive item and purchase it with no clear intent. So why do we do that when we purchase education? At the end of the day, colleges and universities are businesses, and when you enroll you pay for a neatly packaged product; education.

So why do so many students go into college not knowing what they really want, end up taking general courses or general studies in the first year and purchasing it with money they don’t have. Why not spend sometime figuring out what direction you want to take with your life, and then making a more calculated purchase? II’ll tell you this, it’s either these guys are geniuses to be able to convince us all that this is the most practical way to success, or we’re just really dumb.”