Jackie Danicki

My friend Cathy Seipp wrote in this weekend’s Los Angeles Times about her daughter Maia’s adventures in collegiate acceptance, in a piece entitled UC San Diego - or Prostitute College. Maia’s one of the few people I know who would make a good academic (she’s majoring in Russian Studies at university), so I think she’s right to go to college, but my guesstimate is that at least 50 per cent of the people who go on to higher education in the US and UK would be better off doing a gap year of travel and then getting stuck into a real purpose for living.

Then again, I wouldn’t have had the wild, terrifying, but ultimately worthwhile ride I’ve enjoyed if I hadn’t done time at university, pondering the fact that I was learning nothing of real use or interest to me. The amount of time I burned butting my head against the wall in an effort to get better pre-calc grades (as someone who was after a social work or English degree) was particularly educational. The lesson? Sometimes the stuff other people tell you is important really isn’t, no matter how many degrees, titles, or years of government servitude they have. Indeed, sometimes the unimportance of a given matter is directly proportionate to the number degrees, titles, or years of government servitude held by those who keep insisting that it should be terribly, deeply crucial to you.

If you’re an education buff, two of my favourite blogs on the matter are Joanne Jacobs‘ and Judy Breck’s Golden Swamp.

Filed under: Life