Indeed it seems we are just talking past each other. “unbridled freedom to pursue the topics which interest me at my own pace” is what you have outside of school. The university is there to expose you to different ways of learning and thinking about things, different sorts of tasks, different personalities and styles of work, and subjects that might not interest you at the moment.
A lot of the things you complain about are components of a happy and productive life.
I often claim that people go to college too young. One should develop the discipline and drive to appreciate a university education before undertaking it—otherwise, one will miss the point and it will just feel like more high school.
The university is there to expose you to different ways of learning and thinking about things, different sorts of tasks, different personalities and styles of work, and subjects that might not interest you at the moment.
To the extent that one judges that one ought to be exposed to different ways of learning and thinking, different sorts of tasks, and so forth, why not seek them out directly? It is sad but true that many people use autodidacticism as an excuse to be lazy—but it doesn’t have to be.
To the extent that one judges that one ought to be exposed to different ways of learning and thinking, different sorts of tasks, and so forth, why not seek them out directly?
Because these things are assembled to the end of beginning wisdom. Until you’ve begun the journey, you don’t know what to seek out. It’s especially problematic if the sorts of people who have something to teach you are the sort you can’t stand to be around.
In terms of knowing what to seek out, I’ve always thought that the greatest resource available to the aspiring lover of wisdom is the university bookstore, and the carefully selected and graded texts found therein. You can learn far more by working your way through the upper-division assigned texts of a wide range of disciplines than you will ever learn from the classes themselves. I consider myself an autodidact, in that most of my learning at university was self-directed and independent of my coursework, but the structure provided by the progression of courses and their assigned texts was absolutely invaluable. I think the university bookstore is why my self-directed studies were so much more effective once I started attending university than before.
Indeed it seems we are just talking past each other. “unbridled freedom to pursue the topics which interest me at my own pace” is what you have outside of school. The university is there to expose you to different ways of learning and thinking about things, different sorts of tasks, different personalities and styles of work, and subjects that might not interest you at the moment.
A lot of the things you complain about are components of a happy and productive life.
I often claim that people go to college too young. One should develop the discipline and drive to appreciate a university education before undertaking it—otherwise, one will miss the point and it will just feel like more high school.
To the extent that one judges that one ought to be exposed to different ways of learning and thinking, different sorts of tasks, and so forth, why not seek them out directly? It is sad but true that many people use autodidacticism as an excuse to be lazy—but it doesn’t have to be.
Because these things are assembled to the end of beginning wisdom. Until you’ve begun the journey, you don’t know what to seek out. It’s especially problematic if the sorts of people who have something to teach you are the sort you can’t stand to be around.
In terms of knowing what to seek out, I’ve always thought that the greatest resource available to the aspiring lover of wisdom is the university bookstore, and the carefully selected and graded texts found therein. You can learn far more by working your way through the upper-division assigned texts of a wide range of disciplines than you will ever learn from the classes themselves. I consider myself an autodidact, in that most of my learning at university was self-directed and independent of my coursework, but the structure provided by the progression of courses and their assigned texts was absolutely invaluable. I think the university bookstore is why my self-directed studies were so much more effective once I started attending university than before.