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levite · 05-03-2011, 06:19 PM

I think every one of the OP suggestions is awesome, and incredibly valuable, and everyone should do one of them, or something like one of them.

But I don't think they're substitutes for college.

Look, I respect an autodidact. I am a huge autodidact. But there's always going to be things that are extremely difficult or impractical to try and teach yourself. And there's just no substitute for an intellectual and artistic environment that provides such a rich variety of possible avenues of educational exploration. There's no substitute for the opportunity to be around a bunch of people your own age, going through similar self-exploration and evolutions of interest and internal focus, bonding while you learn.

I also think it's useful that college forces you to a wide palette of learning. Most people are instinctively or inherently more verbally or more mathematically oriented, and left to our own devices, we tend to pursue those disciplines that come more easily to us. But college forces us out of our comfort zone, and does so in more interesting ways than high school does. For example, I am deeply verbal, and abysmal at math. But college forced me to take hard science classes that involved math: and I ended up learning to love physics and astronomy, even though I still suck at math. On my own, I would never have taken classes like that, and instead, I got my horizons broadened for me. And I have heard many similar stories, which convince me that I am not unique in this matter.

But I think the things listed in the OP as "alternatives" make great supplements to college, which I heartily agree does not necessarily suffice on its own to make someone a well-rounded, open-minded, creative individual.

05-03-2011, 06:19 PM	#5 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I think every one of the OP suggestions is awesome, and incredibly valuable, and everyone should do one of them, or something like one of them. But I don't think they're substitutes for college. Look, I respect an autodidact. I am a huge autodidact. But there's always going to be things that are extremely difficult or impractical to try and teach yourself. And there's just no substitute for an intellectual and artistic environment that provides such a rich variety of possible avenues of educational exploration. There's no substitute for the opportunity to be around a bunch of people your own age, going through similar self-exploration and evolutions of interest and internal focus, bonding while you learn. I also think it's useful that college forces you to a wide palette of learning. Most people are instinctively or inherently more verbally or more mathematically oriented, and left to our own devices, we tend to pursue those disciplines that come more easily to us. But college forces us out of our comfort zone, and does so in more interesting ways than high school does. For example, I am deeply verbal, and abysmal at math. But college forced me to take hard science classes that involved math: and I ended up learning to love physics and astronomy, even though I still suck at math. On my own, I would never have taken classes like that, and instead, I got my horizons broadened for me. And I have heard many similar stories, which convince me that I am not unique in this matter. But I think the things listed in the OP as "alternatives" make great supplements to college, which I heartily agree does not necessarily suffice on its own to make someone a well-rounded, open-minded, creative individual. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)