Society: the Great Conveyor Belt

Today going to university is not just about learning, it is mainly about entering the swelling pool of graduates who are now categorized as "employable", having a piece of paper that attests to this and consuming copious amounts of alcohol in the process. It is implanted in us from our early school years that the natural thing to do after school is to go to university and get a degree so that it may all culminate in a job. We are pawns placed on a conveyor belt that inexorably takes us through the various stages that society has pre-determined for us; to deviate from this track is looked down on as a failure to achieve what has already been decided for us. How can that be considered a failure if we were not even given the chance to set our own objectives? More importantly, what kind of success is it to merely achieve a life that is not truly our own because we were never at the helm of it?

Going to university is an enrichening experience. Learning is multi-faceted and does not only involve poring through endless books; one would not need to rack up a lifetime's worth of debts if that were the case. Whilst some of us may feel that we solely slave away in the library for 9 months a year, there are a host of other experiences that make us more knowledgeable and open-minded at university. First of all, meeting people from all walks of life ensures that there is a healthy exchange of opinions which may serve to either strengthen one's existing ones or shed light on different lines of thought. This is something achieved mainly through debate. Secondly, university teaches us the important skills of acquiring and processing knowledge through academic writing and research. The feedback from experts in the field is of invaluable use to our development, and not just for the grades. Thirdly, there is no doubt that whilst the formal conferring of the degree is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to education, it is still of immense use when attempting to enter the job market.

However when that tip of the iceberg overwhelms what lies beneath and what really should be valued in a university education, then it all becomes a waste of time. One should not go to university just to get a job as it means education is not an end in itself but a means to an end. When ones goes to university to learn, as well as getting a job eventually, then one is more prone to take a proactive stance in the educational process and engage with it so as to derive some form of satisfaction and personal direction in life. When one goes to university with the sole aim of landing a job then university becomes a conduit to something else, it blurs into the background and one has no incentive to actually think about the experience, let alone engage with it, because the conveyor belt of society has luckily pre-determined the outcome. When I was still in school I wanted to take physics and mathematics at a higher level because I enjoyed them despite the fact that I was almost 100% sure I would not be pursuing a scientific subject at university. Most people advised me not to go ahead with this "madness" because it was useless; in their opinion the subjects I chose to study should be completely determined by what I wanted to study later, therefore rendering school a mere conduit to university such that the latter could then lead to a job and so on so forth.

But what should a job lead to? At university we are rushed into choosing a career path when we often have no work experience whatsoever. This could have catastrophic consequences. A job description does not allow one to make a decision based on the work "experience" as a whole including the work environment and very importantly one's colleagues. We are expected not to stray from our field and have a choice of possible career options which are foisted upon us; however we are not encouraged to contemplate other paths. Everything a graduate does is expected in some way to feed back into that ubiquitous CV rather than being an end in itself. Volunteering, for example, should not be undertaken to enhance one's CV but to develop as a person, meet new people and to give back something when we are normally used to a one-sided relationship with the community. When contemplating a gap year we are asked "how will it look on the CV?" before being asked what benefit will accrue to us. The onus is on employability and not personal development, which falls into second place. If one were to spend a gap year travelling different cultures whilst reading serious books on topics of interests and thus learning a great deal, this would not be recognised on the CV because it is not a tangible form of learning; it does not translate directly into greater employability. But it is in many ways of greater value than participating in a structured volunteer program as there is more room for initiative and one is working towards a self-determined goal. It also becomes an  experience in itself, whose value lies not in the future benefits but in its present.

One need not become a social recluse to add value and direction to one's life; becoming aware of the inexorable conveyor belt is the first step. It is grotesquely simplistic that today's society is pervaded with the idea that a person's achievements can be reduced to two A4 sides, if that, and rather than letting the experiences naturally lead on to the job, we are persuaded to work backwards and apply criteria which are not our own to our life. Our lives are fluid and the only mould being applied to them should be intrinsic to us, not that of a vague job description and accompanying competencies.