What’s the point? Those of us who actually pay attention to what is occurring on CSU campuses know of the recent pay disputes for faculty. After numerous debates and talks of striking, the faculty has won; they received their pay raises, but what about the students?
For many of us, attending CSUN has made sense for financial reasons. Tuition is relatively cheap in comparison with other schools, and most of us commute, but has cheaper tuition somehow equated to a cheaper education?
This is my last semester here at CSUN, and the thoughts of finding a satisfactory job haunt my every waking moment. Many times the feeling of inadequacy loom over me, and I stop and ask myself why I feel that way. Why do I feel horribly unprepared to enter the job market? Why do I feel that I have been cheated out of a college education?
Many people feel that one should go to college to become more worldly, and experience life while concurrently obtaining a piece of paper at the end of hopefully four years that expresses an accomplishment at an accredited four-year institution. While this is a very pleasant and noble thought, when college graduates apply for a job, they will not be able to list their experiences or feelings as qualifications for a job. Employers will not care if I can quote the last lines of “The Waste Land,” or recite a Shakespearean sonnet or, even worse, the beginning of “The Canterbury Tales.” They want to know that the person they are hiring will be bringing valuable knowledge to their organization; if they wanted someone who can memorize lines and recite them, they would hire a parrot. So, what are CSUN’s educational programs really preparing students for?
Why can’t our majors be more job-oriented since the majority of us are here in order to obtain a better job than flipping burgers? Why can’t our professors give us more guidance in life? Why can’t our school prepare us better for the inevitable?
The real world is just around the corner, appearing before our eyes even before we graduate. Are we prepared? Will we succeed? Is the thought of flipping burgers for a living becoming more of a reality as each day passes?
So, the faculty has received their pay raises, but what about the students? What about our futures? What about our success as employees? Maybe I am the only one who is feeling this way, but somehow I highly doubt it. As I sit inside Freudian Sip, I ask myself, what’s the point?
