Opinion: We’re here to radically learn

"The university dilemma has arisen because, as a society, we’ve molded university into a place where study is a means to an end. In the case of Bowdoin, it is even worse — a business model. That was never, and should never, have been the project of the university," writes Sunny Das.

Sunny Das (she/her) is a second-year student in the global resource systems major, specializing in international trade and development. She just transferred to UBC from Bowdoin College in the US and is looking forward to spending the next three years learning more about how we can all flourish in a globalized world.

Growing up, many of us operate under the implicit understanding that attending university is a prerequisite for a ‘better future.’

These days, this illusory ‘better future’ seems to be unveiling itself for what it is: a lie.

The rules that our parents lived by simply no longer apply. A college degree does not get you that far ahead in today’s job market. Even traditionally lucrative career paths, like law, are now proving to be less secure options than they once were. Professors talk about friends with PhDs who struggle to get decent positions. There is worry that AI will quickly replace computer science majors. Surely some of the rhetoric is hyperbole, not reality, but a certain amount of it is true. Even with overall higher incomes, our generation is doing worse than our parents did at our age.

As a result, existential angst hangs in the air as we confront ourselves with not only our future, but the world’s future (yes, I’m talking about the climate crisis).

It seems the world is slipping out from under our feet just as we’re finally getting a good look around. We find ourselves here, in university, doing what we were supposed to do, but unsure of where it will lead us. The idea of acquiring a four-year degree that will launch us into our careers and adulthood doesn’t seem to be much more than that: an idea. The questions loom — is the idea of university antiquated? What’s the point of piling on degrees anyway?

Why are we here?

Growing up in a small New England town in the US (think Gilmore Girls) like I did, university seemed to be the ultimate end goal of my life. In high school, my friends and I grinded out SATs, wrote essay after essay and perfected our lists of extracurriculars — all in hopes of getting into the most prestigious school possible. These were schools like Harvard or Dartmouth, the schools many of our parents went to, schools that had managed to capture the imagination — and the envy — of students from around the world.

The more selective the school one ended up attending, the better. And so people fought like hell for those few exceptional spots, sacrificing their sleep, sanity and selfhood. All so that they’d be selected for a place prestigious enough that its googled acceptance rate would show a single-digit number.

Nine per cent. Seven per cent. Four per cent.

This acceptance number signified you had been chosen. Meanwhile, the other 95 per cent stands locked out of the pretty ivory gates that closed shut on their applications with a clang.

What happens within those doors, though, is not what one may think. This story is, obviously, only my subjective experience from a single year at one of these ‘elite New England’ colleges. It is by no means the only interpretation of their worth and purpose. Yet the comparison between life there and life in Vancouver is too stark not to submit it to some sort of deeper analysis.

At the crux of the analysis lies questions that my high school self never truly asked: what was the undergraduate even made for? What exactly does a ‘liberal arts’ education mean in comparison to any other degree? How does the undergraduate experience operate as a vehicle for change? Stagnation? Does it break barriers or does it build walls? I haven’t fully arrived at answers for any of these, but I do think I have a clearer conception now of differences between the ideology of the liberal arts (the college I previously attended) and the more general undergraduate one (UBC). The comparison serves to highlight the ideology, practicality and legitimacy of both.

Back in the US, I attended Bowdoin College, a small liberal arts school in Maine of around 2,000 people. On our admitted students day, a beautiful May afternoon with the sun shining through the towering trees and leaves scattered across the towers themselves, the faculty corralled us into an imposing auditorium and told us something radical: here, within these ivory gates, we would be asked to undo everything that we had learned in high school.

The liberal arts degree, at their conception, was meant to provide a sanctuary of knowledge: It’s a place where one could study the sages and their contemporaries without the pressure of the outside world banging on their door. It was meant to be a source of meditation, soul-searching, contemplation and learning. It was meant as a four-year period where young people could come to “find themselves” and their place in the world before going on to law school, or government positions, or literature or medicine. Become educated and change the world. That was the idea.

And so, in our orientation groups, the faculty spoon-fed us this narrative. No more should we study for grades. No more should we study for validation. We were here for learning’s sake alone — to gain access to the keys of the world’s library and use it on a sacred quest for ‘the common good.’ We would be supported in our journey with luxuries most college students could never imagine: gourmet food, spring galas, poetry readings. All they asked from us was that we, in our earnest and naive youth, try to solve the world’s problems by unraveling the words and theorems of those who had walked those very halls before us.

It sounded grand. It sounded important. It fed our egos. And most of it was empty.

See, despite the fact that professors and staff would pump students full of ideas of ‘the common good’ and free, radical learning, the overwhelming feeling I got walking through the hallways and fields was apathy.

Sure, there were exceptions and genuine pockets of passion and zeal. But what schools like Bowdoin or Dartmouth don’t like to advertize is how much money they devote to getting people on the Wall Street bandwagon. They will never tell you how their major donors are mostly conservative finance bros or how subservient the school is to their influence. They never tell you about where, exactly, your tuition goes or where, exactly, their huge endowment is spent. They spit out ideas of ‘the common good,’ largely meaning things like equality and justice, but they themselves purposefully propagate the relics of elitism and rampant unchecked capitalism that so heavily contribute to the social injustices we see today.

Make no mistake — American private universities are businesses. They commodify education, they hook you on their exclusivity, they sell you their brand. In effect, the very things they stand for — the free pursuit of knowledge implemented to contribute to the ‘common good’ — get twisted and muddled, lost in the enormous paychecks that leave the American youth enslaved to their student debt.

The critiques go on and on. I stand by the idea of the liberal arts, the idea of pursuing knowledge for its own sake, as an avenue for eventually realizing the ‘good.’ But I don’t see the liberal arts institutions of America delivering. How can they deliver when they are not truly vehicles of education but rather transactional businesses? When they stem from the very elite society that their professors and dogmatic approaches now love to condemn? As institutions, I can’t see how they are doing anything but failing.

UBC is basically the opposite for Bowdoin. First off, it is publicly funded. This means that it doesn’t dole out the same frills as American elite institutions. This also means tuition is relatively cheap, in comparison to both public and private American universities. Second off, UBC is much more pragmatic. Its motto, ‘tuum est,’ meaning it’s yours, puts the onus on the student to create their degree, not the school. Over 70,000 students work towards a degree every year, compared to just 2,000 at Bowdoin. In that way, it is also much more efficient, giving more students the resources to get an education.

UBC is also ideologically different in its aim. It is not a liberal arts school. It does not care as much for cultivating students who are armed to the teeth with knowledge of philosophy and appropriate aesthetic appreciation. Instead, your education is really up to you: business, forestry, engineering, science, arts, research.

There is no clearly defined purpose of the university other than for you to be educated as you wish, to help you on whatever life path you choose. No one is corralling you into an auditorium on your first day of class to tell you how gifted you are. No one is writing poetry and singing songs about the legacy you’ve inherited as a UBC student. No one is acting like this is a fairytale. It is this attitude that UBC wields like a double-edged sword.

At UBC, no one really cares. That’s the truth. You’re a number, one of thousands. It’s easy to feel lost in the crowd. The ultimate freedom and space UBC gives can be dizzying and leave one paralyzed in the chaos of emptiness. Rent is high, food prices are high, time is low. Despite this, some do revel in the freedom of the place. If you grab opportunities as they fly, the limit really is the sky. No one cares, but no one is stopping you either. Except, maybe, the pressures of everyday expenses and long commutes for some.

Yet despite the vast differences between both schools, the existential questions of what the undergraduate experience is for still linger. At Bowdoin, one must ask why they are paying an arm and a leg for a somewhat mediocre experience at an ego-driven elitist institution. At UBC, one must ask why they are spending four years barely affording rent, swimming in a sea of thousands, only to end up without secure job prospects. In both cases, the illusion of reproducing our parents’ lives is quickly dispelled.

The bitter truth is this: our society has failed us. And our institutions are failing us. The university dilemma has arisen because, as a society, we’ve molded university into a place where study is a means to an end. In the case of Bowdoin, it is even worse — a business model. That was never, and should never have been, the project of any university. The liberal arts got one thing right though: university is a time to stop, drop and learn.

The good news is this: One does not need to stand within the private pretty ivory gates to gain access to pearls of knowledge. They are here, for all of us, in the libraries and books and people around us. Fear of the future job market does not need to deter you from exercising your duty as a student to freely inquire and learn. Even if your degree needs to be a purely practical one, there are so many people to learn from through simple conversation, so many different ways to “become educated.” The trick is to stop relying on the idea that institutions are the guides through which we, as students, will “become educated.” Our institutions are failing us. We must take our education into our own hands.

And make no mistake, the need for education is as important as it ever was. If one thing is for certain nowadays, it is that we live in uncertain times. In many ways, we have no choice but to grapple our way forwards in a world bathed in darkness. In university, at least we have some time to grope around and see if there is a light switch anywhere to be found.

So let’s agree not to let these institutions rob us of our money, time and worth. Most of their promises are bullshit, most of their goals vapid. I say, each to their own ability and capacity — commit to radical learning for the sake of learning itself, even if only for one hour, one minute, one second a day. Because that, despite everything else going on, is what all of us are really here for.

This is an opinion article. It reflects the author's views and does not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visitingubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.