By Jeff Wagner
Well, it’s almost June, and you’ve got another year
under your belt at one of the finest universities in the nation.
You’re talented, you’re sociable and just think how
much smarter you are than all those clods in the Cal State schools.
Heck, it won’t be long before your UCLA degree is earning you
seven figures and you’re sipping daiquiris in the
Mediterranean.
Yep, you’ve done everything right. But now, a new
development threatens to make degrees like yours a thing of the
past. Just when you thought that four years at UCLA was your ticket
to success, another alternative emerges ““ in the form of the
online university.
Alas! How can you have college without classrooms? Without human
professors? Without dorms and basketball and blue books? A college
degree will never be the same!
This possibility frightens a lot of people, but I am here to set
your mind at ease. If you want to know the truth, college
ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Andrew Wohlwend
writes, “I’ve always thought that a college degree
meant something. It meant that you had put in your time; you made a
down payment on an education for your future” (“Online
universities ignore educational value of campus experiences,”
Viewpoint, May 10).
At one time, a degree did mean something. You could look at a
college graduate and be pretty sure that the person could think
independently, solve problems and carry on an intelligent
conversation.
Today, it seems people think the degree is all that matters, and
have forgotten about the personal qualities that a degree used to
signify. Imagine you own a business, and then look around in class.
Would you want to hire even half of these people?
Sure, people here are plenty intelligent, but it takes more than
that to succeed in the real world. A friend of mine was driving to
visit me when she called to say she had a flat tire. I told her to
stay put and then jumped in my car to help her out. In the
meantime, she tried to take the tire off the rim with a
screwdriver, and punched a hole in the bottom of the car with her
jack.
I don’t want to make too big a deal of this incident, but
it does bring to mind something Mark Twain said: “Don’t
let your schooling get in the way of your education.” Of all
the things you really need to know in life, how much of it will you
learn from your four years at UCLA?
As for online classes, Wohlwend points out, “All I have to
do now is give a friend of mine my password. He can take the class
for me.” If UCLA is a haven of academic honesty, it’s
news to me.
Apparently it’s news to professors, too. At a psychology
midterm I took recently, the professor told us to space ourselves
apart, remove our hats, close our bags and write our names on every
page of the test. She then had us sign a statement saying that we
were taking the test on the honor system.
Hmm … is that what the honor system is these days? It’s
a little like the cops hooking you up to a lie detector, injecting
you with sodium pentothal and then saying, “All right, please
be honest. Did you kill the guy?”
The worst thing is, a true honor system may not even work
anymore. Last summer, I took a political science course taught by a
professor visiting from England. She was a friendly old lady who
was also a wheelchair user.
After passing out the final exam, she said, “I don’t
want to be in your way; I’ll just go outside.” As soon
as she did, two students pulled out their notes and basically
co-wrote their essays. Anything to get that college degree, I
guess.
The day after Wohlwend’s column ran, a Viewpoint feature
asked six students what they thought about online education (Speaks
Out, May 12). One of them responded, “There’s nothing
like one-on-one contact with a professor.” Which brings to
mind one question: Where does this guy go to school?
I can only guess that romanticized ideas like that come from
watching television and movies. In Hollywood’s version of
higher education, professors dazzle us with their knowledge,
students make witty remarks, and people discuss class topics
outside of class.
We should remember that in Hollywood, the good guys win, the bad
guys lose, and guys like David Arquette marry girls like Courteney
Cox.
In the real world, it’s different. Students just want to
know what will be on the test, people who like to ask questions are
despised, and the most interesting thing about the professor is
that he still wears Velcro shoes.
So what am I getting at? Here it is: college is not going to
make us successful, it will not teach us to survive in the world
and it will not make us good people. There is far more to personal
growth than a college degree can give you, whether it is from UCLA
or from some Internet school.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “To my astonishment I was
informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation! Why, if
I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about
it.” Maybe it’s time for us to get out there and learn
something real.