Forced into college?

By Ian Murtha

It's apparent to me now that no one actually likes college. By college here, I mean the educational institution. The love affair with the years spent at a university focuses on the social college experience.

Essentially, that boils down to something very simple: fun. The seniors departing Santa Clara, ready to embark on what is generally considered the rest of their lives, are not mourning the loss of enforced learning.

However, they are in most cases deeply saddened by the probable loss of a number of friends and the ability to have fun on the same level they have for the past four years.

Certainly, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who regrets the education they received in college.

However, in my experience, for the current crop of college students I belong to, that education is mostly just the byproduct of something we simply have to do: get a degree. In order to live in any semblance of comfort in the modern world, an advanced level of education is quickly becoming absolutely necessary.

College has also become the time for an individual to question the beliefs with which they were raised. That questioning, coupled with some exposure to new or even opposing beliefs, is supposed to help form a more complete person.

But do we ever stop to question the institution of college itself or even the system of education on a whole?

As with most children raised in America, I was forced into the educational system at a very young age. I began what could be called formal education at the age of four. Now at 22, I have spent a staggering 18 years inside a system I didn't choose to enter.

Not even the systems of capitalism or Catholicism trapped me that long.

But unlike a personal choice about the best system of economics or religion one should support, education now touches something much more primal: the basic human need to survive.

This locks us into the educational system longer and with a greater force than most others. Survival and quality of life are basic human needs and desires, and freedoms have historically been easier to part with when they are involved.

Unfortunately, this has led our society into a single, near all-encompassing path of institutionalized education. It is simply not a viable option to avoid formal education if you wish to achieve even the most modest level of accomplishment within society.

A number of questions come to mind that make such an arrangement frightening in my eyes: Who controls and maintains the educational system? Why do they get to choose what I learn? How do I know what I am being taught is true, or even a good thing to learn at all?

Someone, really a collective of someones, decided for us all that learning languages other than our native tongue, the history of the world and the way to perform advanced mathematical calculations was the right thing to do. More importantly, what languages, what histories and what formulae were decided for us.

It's important to remember I am specifically questioning formalized and institutionalized education. Not to wish to be a part of such a system does not imply ignorance or laziness. I love learning languages and history. I try my hand at those calculations too, but am usually bested by them.

My issue is with the system in which I had no say and have no option but to take part in. Should I wish to be a part of society, which is actually very diverse in all other ways, I must comply.

I believe I can turn this abstract idea into something concrete using a recent event on campus. The university allowed this year's student production of "The Vagina Monologues" to take place on campus. However, it had not allowed this in years past, citing that the play portrayed sexuality in contrast to the Catholic Church's teachings.

That may be true, but the play also effectively teaches the audience about female sexuality on a whole and the horrors of violence against women throughout the world.

If the group in control of my education struggles with the idea of sharing that message, I would like to take issue with them. However, little can be done on a whole.

More importantly, this example made me wonder if we are being blocked from any other messages out there in the world that we may actually agree with, and in fact desire to know.

I am very grateful for my college education. I believe this opportunity should be available to everyone. But I do not feel it should be a mandatory aspect of one's life like it is quickly becoming.

Ian Murtha is a senior philosophy major. He is slot editor for The Santa Clara.