August 23, 2013

Dale J Stephens - University's Party Curriculum


Dale J Stephens quit college and started a movement to break the college as the default career path mind-set called UnCollege. He appeared in Wired Magazine (March/April 2013) and said of his university experience:
"Going to college is meant to be the culmination of 12 years of hard work, determination and study. You're told that if you get good grades, ace your tests and do lots of extracurriculars, you'll get into a good university. The reasoning seems solid when you're at secondary school - after all, everyone tells you that university graduates earn more and are less likely to be unemployed.  
I enrolled... However any idealism was quickly squashed. For the most part, people weren't there to learn - they were there to party, and hangovers permitting, learn something along the way. I started asking questions."

Specifically he asked:
"If the best experiences happen outside the classroom, why was I paying $42,000 to sit inside one?... Is it worth getting into serious debt just to get a degree? Will your degree even get you a job when 35% of grads in the UK are working in roles that don't require one?"

 Stephens then said:
"[College] Rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application."

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