The purpose of college is to prepare us for “the real world.” If you look at the crapshoot of college admissions alone, then that statement holds true. But there are many ways in which the college process actually teaches us to take on the characteristics we condemn in world leaders. First of all, the process often teachs us that who you are is more important than what you do. Where you came from, where you go to college, who you have as connections seem to be more important than your personal characteristics, strengths, and achievements. We all think that if we do not get into Princeton or Yale, we will fail at life. That is not necessarily true. I say not necessarily true because as much as I want to believe that’s the case, the college process does indeed reflect our society and our real-life drive for competition and power.
We are a capitalist society; there needs to be something or someone on top, so that we are always striving to better ourselves. We get into Harvard, and we go there because it is Harvard, even though we may not get as much out of it as we would have gotten out of a smaller, second tier school that has more one-on-one attention and a department of particular interest. We are constantly told that, if we find ourselves in that situation, we should pick the second tier school that fits better. Yet society is hypocritical—if it doesn’t care about the name of the school we go to, then why are there big-name colleges in the first place?
We get into Penn but get rejected from Stanford, so we are not good enough. Or we find out that our classmate who is really smart is applying to our favorite school and when he asks what we think about that particular school we tell him how horrible it is so that he will possibly change his mind. We all do it, perhaps each to a different extent, but to some extent all the same. We begin to compete—we begin to care more about class rank than our individual grades. We decide not to tell anyone where we are applying so that no one will get any ideas to apply to the same school. I don’t think that’s an inappropriate thing to do; in fact, I think it is smart and almost necessary. However, I think it’s sad that the college process comes down to such a competition.
We are the leaders of tomorrow—are we going to continue this competitive trend and keep our cancer research secret so that no one finds the cure before we do? It kind of changes your perspective when you look at it that way. We look at our current political leaders and we complain about the constant lies they tell us, the money they spend on their campaigns, the boasts of winning three Purple Hearts—all the things they do to get our votes. Yet aren’t we doing the exact same thing when filling out our resumes for college? If debating between joining a club or not, don’t we tell ourselves, “Well, it would look good on my college resume”? Do we do community service because we want to help out our community, or do we do it so we can complete our community service hours in time for graduation?
Again, I’m not saying this is a bad thing, nor that everyone does good for selfish reasons only. But how are we going to change the world if we are not honest and unified? What would get done if the only change in the world came from people who went to Ivy League schools? Nothing. The world will never get anywhere unless we share our knowledge and our passion with the people against whom we are now competing. But of course, not everyone is that nice, nor is anything that simple. So underclassmen, be nice to your prefects, because, just like life, this college process is not easy.
