“Which university to go”maybe is the most
important decide in your life.Because a good
education is of importance.What makes you did the the final decision?
University rankings, campus environment, graduate employment can all be factors.
Whether this university will train an independent thinking people and the
ability to study, analysis, seek the essence of things may be not taken into
consideration.
We maight as well learn the advice given by
Steve Blackwood,visiting scholar at Harvard University and University of
Toronto：
I
frequently get asked for advice about going to college.
This
is partly because I helped my nine younger siblings through the college
process, from application to graduation, but also because I've spent much of my
own life in various colleges and universities, either as a student (I have a
B.A., M.A., and a Ph.D.), a teacher, or as a "residential life"
administrator. So I know the university from the inside.
If
you're the person I'm thinking of, you're intelligent, industrious, genuinely
interested in learning, and not in immediate need of a trade with which to
support yourself: in short, you're an ideal candidate for college. You've
already visited a number of top schools, and, given your educational and
economic background, you're likely to have a choice of several well-regarded
institutions.
It's
an exciting time of life—you’re about to head out on your own, to a world of
adventurous independence, learning, and, later, employment.
But
first, you need to choose a college. It's the biggest decision you've ever
made, and among the most consequential decisions you will ever make. So how do
you choose a college?
Well,
first some bad news: a college degree is not a guarantee either of an education
or a job. In the United States right now, about half of recent college
graduates are either unemployed or underemployed. Think about that.
A
prominent venture capitalist told me recently that of the dozens of Ivy-league
graduates he had hired over the past twenty years, he judged only about half of
them to be competent to complete simple tasks, like conducting Internet
research, or composing a well-written and proofread e-mail. He's not alone:
American businesses are spending billions of dollars per year on remedial
learning for their employees.
And
so, despite what the glossy brochures and gorgeous websites and campus tours
will tell you, there's a very high risk that you won't get much in return for
your investment of four years of your life and a huge sum of money.
How
can you prevent throwing away all that time and money? How can you tell in
advance that you're really going to get an education?
The
first thing to notice about a college is how it markets itself.
I
recently came across a billboard for a large public university, which depicted
a shorts-and-t-shirt-attired young man, carrying a surfboard that was
emblazoned with the university’s initials; the caption read, “Learn where the
living is easy.”
Then,
a few weeks later, on a tour for prospective students at an Ivy League
university near New York, I was shown a Glee-inspired music video that featured
residence rooms and social life but made no mention of classes or academics. It
might as well have been describing a cruise vacation. Similarly, some colleges
offer “pet-friendly dormitories” or “apartment-style” accommodation.
If
you find such marketing campaigns attractive, you might ask yourself what
you’re looking for, because it certainly isn’t an education.
Still,
many universities and liberal arts colleges are smart enough in their marketing
to show you photos of beautiful books, bright classrooms, and smiling students,
while they mention phrases like “liberal arts education” and “critical
thinking.” But would you make a quarter of a million dollar investment in a
business on the basis of its marketing materials alone? I doubt it, and
likewise you’re going to want to dig deeper than what a college says about
itself to figure out what you’re actually going to get if you enroll there.
But
how can you dig deeper? It may come as a surprise to you, but the biggest
single test of whether a college is worth attending is not its ranking, its
placement record, or the average salary of its graduates.
It's
whether it treats you like an adult. Don’t expect a college to help you become
an intelligent adult and a responsible citizen if it does not treat you like
one.
Many
colleges and universities will not treat you like an adult—someone who can
think and act independently—but instead they will treat you like a child in
need of sermonizing and supervision while they severely restrict what you are
allowed to say and think.
To
begin with, if a college is not unambiguously committed to freedom of thought,
and its counterpart, freedom of speech, how can you possibly expect to learn
how to think critically—to examine opposing positions and analyze the merits
and deficiencies of each?
It is
the nature of thought itself that it cannot be subordinated in advance to any
ideological position. The human faculty of reason is unfettered by allegiance
to anything but the truth itself.
Accordingly,
the mark of a true university is intellectual diversity—and yet most
universities are remarkable for mind-numbing conformity, for a student body
that looks diverse but all believes the same things, where dissenting voices
are marginalized or ridiculed.
How
are you going to learn to think if your university is opposed to thinking?
Think
about that.
One
good way to get a sense of a college's commitment to freedom of speech is to
check its rating on this
website, which will give you detailed reasons for each
"speech code rating" it assigns.
You
can also tell a lot about a college by the courses it offers. Avoid colleges
whose courses don’t have students engage with original sources. Would you be
reading Plato, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, or merely reading what other
people have said about them? You want to encounter the books and ideas that
change lives directly, not through a pre-packaged conclusion.
If
you're not sure what a course is about or what it would entail, then write to
the professor and politely request a syllabus. This kind of research is part of
taking adult responsibility for the decision you're about to make.
After
your Internet research, you'll need to get off the computer and “test-drive”
the college in person. There's no better way to see what you're really going to
get than going to campus and sitting in on classes with several different professors.
How
big are the classes? What's the atmosphere like? Does it seem that students are
really thinking and learning? Or are the students slumped in their chairs,
surfing the net and texting? Above all, does being in the classroom make you
excited to come back for more? If not, don't go back! There's no reason to
think you'll like it better once you've paid your tuition—and don't even
consider going to a college if you haven't sat in on several classes.
Next,
what do you think of the students you meet? Do they seem to have some
intangible freedom that you want to share? Are they caught up in the
exhilaration of discovery, debate, and independence? Or do they seem pretty
much like your friends in high school, only with more experience partying?
And
that brings me to the best way to discern whether a college is worth your
investment. Ask yourself the following question: does this feel like high
school? The more different from high school a college feels, the less likely it
is to police and patronize you, and the more likely it is to treat you like an
adult and offer you a real education.
Well,
what is a real education?
A
real education will give you transferable skills of learning, analysis, and
seeking the heart of things.
A
real education exposes you to the eternal realities of truth, goodness, and
beauty, and will do this primarily through the history of art, literature, and
science, the daring investigation of which will lead you to lifelong
friendships and happiness.
A
real education will treat you like a person of spirit, intelligence, and
personality.
A
real education will awaken something inside you, and that something is your
freedom.
Don't
settle for anything less.
Source: Pope Center for higher education
policy
Subject: How to Choose a College
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