Rant of the Week

Dead-ucation

It is very hard to imagine anything nice or interesting about the University of Phoenix, a private, for profit university which has over 500,000 students. I imagine myself as a student at this corporate meat-grinder and feel depressed.

The problem is this: why would a for-profit corporation care about history, or philosophy, or literature, or music, or art? They would only care about it as something that can be packaged and marketed to impressionable young people as a component of a certificate which will entitle them to a good-paying job which entitles them to a home and a car and nice clothes and vacation trips to Europe where they can examine ancient artifacts and artworks and take digital pictures and post them to Facebook and make wise investments and retire and die alone. They would be as interested in history as Microsoft is interested in literature, or IBM is interested in music, or General Motors is interested in nature: only insofar as it can be used to sell a product.

The online versions of schools like the University of Phoenix are even more depressing. You take courses over the internet on your computer. You punch in and punch out. You fill in the blanks, check off the boxes, get your scores. Does this even remotely begin to teach you the process of thinking on your feet, or responding to situations and expressions, or learning to connect to other people?