When I finally decided I was serious about graduating from college, I made sure to do it in the shortest possible time. At the time, I thought of school as a burden; I wanted to be done with the tedious BS and be on my way. It wasn’t until I reached MSU (via LCC) that I began to experience college as something other than an obstacle to be overcome.

By the time I graduated, I had abandoned the idea that college is about getting a job, which was the basis of the “obstacle” mentality. I assumed that because any job I wanted to do would require a college degree, college must be about getting a job. That made it a barrier between the workforce and me, and barriers are meant to be broken down or otherwise trampled underfoot. It was a very bull in the china shop mentality, all blunt force trauma and no finesse. It was a mistake to think that way, and I hope others might learn to appreciate college for the experience and education and not simply its potential for greater earning power.

There is no such thing as a homogenous college experience. For some people — doctors, lawyers and engineers, in particular — going to college is the only way to get a job. The degree is the entrance to the workforce. If one does not have it, one cannot join the community, period. But even for those pursuing professional degrees, there has to be more to college than the piece of paper at the end. Even students who start out pre-med or pre-law can happen on something that speaks to them like nothing else. In that sense, college can be a place where we learn to separate our hobbies from our passions.

Point A to point B is good at one thing, but it doesn’t truly allow for exploration. It doesn’t take the time to appreciate things. Even someone who hates structure, homework, tests, attendance and all the tedious minutiae that goes into academics should take the time to examine the “whys” behind them.

In higher education, we learn how to learn. Where K-12 gives us a base amount of knowledge to function in society, college is where we go to figure out how society works and the function of the knowledge in society. Taking rhetoric and design classes helped me see the world in a different light. They shed light on why some things elicited negative responses (looking at you comic sans) and others had more positive connotations. I suspect it’s that way in all the departments across campus: Classes teach us to see “whys” and “hows,” define the “whats” and place them in context with “when.” We are given not only the chance to appreciate, but also to dissect. College gives us the chance to take apart our world and look at what makes it tick. The area of study is inconsequential: We all take things apart and then put them back together.

It is this last part — putting things together — that really indicts a linear college experience. After taking something apart, there is moment where we can decide how to put it back together exactly as it was, or something a little different. It is good, for example, for a doctor to be skilled, but it is great for them to be able to interact with patients in a way the patient can understand. I’m willing to bet that climate scientists wish they had more experience with public relations and marketing.

Point is we can set out to do something, such as become the world’s greatest engineer or journalist, and never understand anything because we lack the perspective. Oh, there’ll probably be a job out there somewhere, but excelling is not the same thing as working.

In college, we learn to see the basics and then imagine the possibilities. Treating this potential as only a prerequisite to a job shortchanges the student, the creative process and society as a whole.

_David Barker is the outgoing State News opinion editor. Reach him at barkerd3@msu.edu.