College is a rite of passage. There are two reasons why people go to college. Most go to prepare for a specific career. They go to get an accounting, computer science, or a physics degree, fully intending to enter the field of work in which they have their degree. Alternatively, some go to receive a general education: to study literature, history, philosophy and the like, not usually expecting to enter these fields as a teacher or for graduate work. Rather, they study these subjects merely for the personal benefits that study brings: general knowledge, improved thinking, clear communication, and the pleasure of reading great works, which is its own reward.
There may be a third reason some people go – for “the experience.” Surely you have heard someone say, “I just want the full college experience,” by which they mean they wish to do the dorming and the dining and the dying (metaphorically) inherent in the college experience. They know, as we know, that college is not merely a degree, or even, as it is occasionally, an education. College is a rite of passage. It is like a mountain top climb, a deep sea dive, a leap out of a soaring plane: it is an experience intentionally pursued to prove your worth. Can you survive college? Can you make it through cramped rooms, unhealthy food, toxic young adult culture, crushing homework loads? Will you make it, and if you do, who will you be, when you reach the other side?
It is akin to a midnight hazing ritual, performed by eager young men to “initiate” the new member. Can you walk the gauntlet, enduring the blows of your peers to reach the prize? Can you suffer the way we have suffered? If so, you are worthy to be a member of the club of adults; if not, we relegate you to the category of reprehensible blue collar worker – the scum who fix our toilets.
Thus college is not, as many claim, ultimately about getting a specific job. I do not mean that it does nothing to prepare you for your job. But if, at its core, college were really about jobs, why does it matter little which degree you acquire? Employers seem to care far more that you have a degree, rather than that you have a specific one – despite obvious exceptions, as in specialized scientific degrees. Overall, however, unless you enter a very specific field, employers merely want to see that you have done the college thing, not that you left with a degree in Analytical Econometric Meteorology. They know, as you know, that your general degree in Communication doesn’t really prepare you for a specific job. It would be impossible for it to do this; not only was this never its intended function, but the idea of a bunch of college classes preparing you to work in a specific field is rather absurd. Classrooms are good at giving you intellectual knowledge, not practical skills, and jobs are all about practical skills. That is why no one tries to teach car repair with a lecture and a powerpoint presentation. Instead, they hand you a wrench. For the same reason, employers spend weeks or even months training all their new employees – they know college did not actually teach you to do your new job.
Since employers do not view college degrees as job training, they insist upon that magic piece of paper only to prove one essential thing: you passed the rite of passage. You’re cool now; you’re in the white collar club. You had to endure the hazing to get in, and that means you’re tough – tough enough to drag yourself out of bed and go to work in a mind-numbing office job for 60 hours a week.
College is the rite of passage into the American workforce. If you endured the beating, you have earned your right to work alongside the big boys. This is why employers do not care very much what degree you have, what GPA you have, or what kind of great Christian fellowship you had with your water polo team. They want to see that you have the metal to take what they will give you – and passing college shows you do.
Of course, they’re right. A college degree does show you have great endurance, a strong work ethic, and the willingness to take the beatings of an unsustainable lifestyle to gain “success.” You have proven yourself. But at what cost? You spent $100,000 on classes you won’t remember for an employer who doesn’t care. You lived in a small, dirty, and smelly dorm room, eating unhealthy and overpriced food. You entered an immature and adolescent culture devoid of most family, authority, and responsibility. No one needed you and you needed no one, and you called it bliss. Freedom. Self-Discovery. The dream of America: that you could declare independence from everything that matters and find true happiness in living for yourself – it is at your fingertips. Will you survive the idols offered you on a silver platter? If so, the American workforce is for you. In the process, you will bow down to many of these American Baals, and you may struggle the rest of your life to smash those wretched statues.
This is college at its worst. At its best, it is a place to find true wisdom, true friends, and true righteousness. By God’s grace, I have found and continue to find all these things. And for these, I am eternally grateful to Grove City College.
But I, and many others, have had to fight to find these things. I have survived the rite of passage, only to look back on it with bewilderment. Was it not hard enough to fight against deep personal sin and confusion about identity and future? Did college need to add to these things separation from church, home, and family, a lack of godly, older role models, and a youth culture that actively encourages an unhealthy lifestyle?
Doubtless, I chose this. But I was young; I was a fool. Do not judge me too harshly if I have not flourished in a place I did not understand. Now I do understand, and I decry this rite of passage. I came here to learn, to find wisdom. I received suffering. For the large part that was my fault, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. For the part that was this silly hazing ritual’s fault, I ask the same.
We do not have to do it this way, and I pray we do not. I have seen too many people, myself included, driven to fear, anger, and despair by these circumstances. Let the rite of passage die.
