A Venting Session and Why I Want to Receive my Diploma on Stage

Part 1: Specializing in Stupid People

As I have been perusing the job market (look up the real definition for that word, btw), I have had a lot of time to read. Thank goodness, since I agree with the opinions circulating around about the education system not really teaching students much these days. Sure, undergrads learn how to live outside their parents' homes (hopefully) and that utilities cost more than anyone thinks they should, but I am of the opinion that undergrads still remain largely uneducated.

Perhaps this is a result of diploma factories, or perhaps this is due to the increasing number of stupid people admitted to college because the USA is now devoted to producing human capital and it is very likely there is correlation and perhaps causation with this inability to actually educate people.

I am not going to enter the war here on which education system is best (Finland), but I can offer my two cents to why I think the educational system here in the states is suffering. It's because of stupid people. I won't even try and be politically correct about this. The people of whom I am referring are stupid. It is an adjective that behooves them.

The world has entered into a state of specialization. For the most part, I am down with this. If you do not wish to change your own oil or fix your own toilet, I am not like you, but I see your argument. If everyone fixed their own toilets, plumbers would be restricted to building houses. But if everyone did everything, people would build their own houses and plumbers would just have really good piping in their own homes that would probably never break in the first place and they wouldn't fulfill their full capability as an amazing plumber. Plus, everyone would be so busy building their own houses and fixing their toilets, no one would be educated and my blog entry is negated and even nonexistent since my own toilet has been dripping.

I will still save copious amounts of money by changing my own oil, but I can respect individuals who value that hour it would take them to get on the ground and mosey under their vehicle to change their oil. Some people are better at this than others, and they honestly should change your oil. If the only consistencies in economics deal with incentives and the worth of time, by all means, let us stay as efficient as possible. I would rather not build my own house and sit here whining in a blog typing on a computer I did not make wearing clothes made in China.

So, specialization is great in many ways. Except when your country chooses a specialization that requires a lot from its people. That's what the US has done. Human capital cannot be efficiently made out of everyone. That's just not how it works. Some people are better at plumbing; some are better at changing oil; some are great people- people and want to bartend for their entire life (which can make good money, let me tell you). Then there are those people who are stupid.

These stupid people are the people who are entering into their undergraduate degrees for no other reason than they saw some TV commercial about online degrees that allow you to auto-magically earn an extra 1 million dollars in your lifetime and get that degree in your pajamas. The US is attempting to make its specialization a fast-track solution for stupid people who would probably honestly better benefit society in some other way. So we get stupid people skipping classes right after they sign the roll who are only there because the pretty economics charts say they will make more money if they have that diploma. And, guess what? We are buying into it. The US education system is having to spread their thin budget to an almost transparent film so everyone can go to college. Because America specializes in smart.

How is this specialization good?

Aren't we (the Western educational system) merely making it so to have any chance of success you have to get an education in something even if it has nothing to do with what you want? Then we continue to slap a GPA on their intelligence level based on outdated scales to efficient rank the new product coming out of the line?

Aren't we just making college a "must" and forcing people to go to school right after graduating high school and forcing them to take classes they do not need? Aren't we just adding on steps to the process of basic education? Long before, if you wanted to be a baker, you followed a baker around for a few years and ta-da! You could bake some amazing bread. Now in order to get the decent job you want, you have to graduate high school, get an undergrad, and then you can hope for an internship to get you the possibility of getting the job that could get you the job you want -- as a baker. Then, to run your bakery, you will need to get a Master's in accounting.

So, how can we possibly expect students to care about physics if they want to be a baker? If they don't care, they won't learn. If they don't learn, statistics five years down the road will show they retained no physics from their 101 class they took mostly hungover. Well, why should they? They are a baker, after all. So perhaps this baker has a low GPA because they just barely passed Physics. And Biology. And Astronomy. And Western Humanities. And Econ. ; they are earmarked as being "stupid" and I wish them luck finding an internship. They then have to go to culinary school to actually learn what they want to learn.

This is instead making the US less efficient and less competitive overall. A common stereotype is that Asians are smarter than Americans. They can do math faster, write in magical characters, and all of this with slanted eyes (so the ethnocentric stereotype goes). What if, instead, Asians are thought to be smarter because we are only exposed to the smart ones and this is because resources are better allocated to those individuals best suited for higher education in what they are good at?

Are you offended yet? I basically called billions of people unworthy of higher education. Why is this offensive, though? Perhaps it's because in the world of specialization, education equals success and the most successful countries are the most well educated. Following this subliminal connotation, you are probably offended because you think I just said billions of people are unworthy of succeeding in life. Let's break that connotation right now. I think bakers and plumbers and bartenders and policemen and hoodlums and grandmothers and preachers and orphans and everyone in the entire world is worthy of success.

I just don't think specializing in stupid people is the way to do it.

Stay tuned for part 2: T'was the Classroom of Twitter