The Problem of College and Creativity
I think everyone is in agreement that there are some serious inefficiencies when it comes to higher education in the United States and beyond. Now don't get me wrong--college has been unbelievably beneficial for me in more ways than I can count. But much of what I've done has been to fill gaps in the education system, and I'm going to begin to describe those gaps here.
If you're a student or have student loans, you'd probably love to contribute to this post and list off all the things you think could be better about college especially in terms of economic value. Needless to say, this could be a very long post. But to keep this a little more focused and digestible, I'm going to deep-dive one very specific problem: the problem of college's effect on creative students.
Universities encourage a very systematic method of pursuing a career: Pick a major, find out what jobs you can get with that major, try to gain experience in that field pre-graduation, and secure an entry-level role at a large corporation following college.
I think that after spending four years of your life being educated, the fact that you have to accept a position where you have the least influence and decision making power possible is questionable at the very least. Some people are ok with this, and honestly, I get it. It's nice to simply plug into a system where requirements are simple and clear, and you always know when you'll be working and when you won't. You have a steady stream of income, and just an overall sense of stability. Believe me, I think that is an incredibly valuable thing, and I know many find fulfillment in aiming towards that lifestyle. But some absolutely do not.
Creative types know in their bones that no matter what they're being told to get done for someone else, they could do something 10x more impactful on their own. The trick is to do something about it. And many colleges make that seem impossible.
The truth that the universities don't tell you much about is that there are a million ways to make money, and a million ways to learn. And I know you know that. Everyone "knows" that. But I don't think enough people understand that they actually have the power to take action in that regard and start working on something outside of their school curriculum, or even outside of their extra-curriculars at their school. They adopt the mindset that the "system" is all there is. And in the system, the goal is to get a good entry-level role somewhere after graduation.
I don't think that's the right way for creative people to look at it. What makes a creative person a creative person is #1 their capacity for creative output and #2 their need for it. And by "need", I mean that a creative person does not feel personal fulfillment without some sort of outlet for that creative output. But I think a lot of creative people go through college without that outlet, and get tricked into working a job that doesn't fulfill them.
Here's the problem with "the goal" being to get hired by some big corporation out of college: That goal likely does not require an exceptional amount of creative output to achieve. What it does require is strong performance in school, some level of extracurricular involvement, and maybe an internship or two. Creative output helps, but if you're creative enough to work on something impressive of your own in your undergraduate years, I don't think it makes sense to use that creativity to impress people enough to let them tell you what do to. You might be better off exploring what you can build on your own.
So what's my point? College is a great, and I do think most people should attend if they have the means. And while they're there, it might make sense to understand traditional career paths, and pick on that interests them. But if you think you might be a creative person, don't make all of that "the goal". Make it the safety net.
While college is a great way to become educated in ways that make you competitive in the job market, it's also a place where you have once-in-a-lifetime access to resources and peers that could help you build almost anything you can imagine with very little risk. That is an unbelievably valuable part of the experience that I don't think enough students take advantage of, which results in likely millions of students settling for roles that don't allow them to make the impact that they could make if they were working off of their own ideas.
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