From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Tue Nov 25 2003 - 18:23:44 MST
At 11:28 PM 24/11/03 -0700, ElvenSage wrote:
snip
>College for me so far has seemed like wasted time. Not because it's not
>going to get me somewhere, but because I haven't really been challenged
>and I haven't learnt much of anything from being there. My friend Kevin
>has gone there for 5 years now, as a computer science major (same as me)
>and overall I believe I know more about computer science and can write
>code at the same level, if not higher then him. Too bad everyone requires
>a stupid peice of paper to get a good job. Pffft! But that's a whole
>'nother subject.
You are seriously missing the point of going to college.
I didn't understand it myself when I went, but years later when I got
involved with space colonies/L5 Society and spent time at Princeton and MIT
I figured it out. What is significant is *who you get to know.*
People are *social* primates. College is an opportunity to form social
contacts with people who can help you and that you can help as well for the
rest of your life.
There are other ways of getting social contacts and those work ok
too. This "place" is one of them. You can build a reputation for being a
nice person (in the Tit-for-Tat sense of not defecting first as well as the
more common sense of being pleasant) and a reputation for being reliable
and responsible. Often a reputation for being reliable means you turn down
a lot of requests rather than say you will when it is likely you can't do
something for press of other commitments.
There are darn good reasons deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology to
form long term reliable relationships with college pseudo "tribe
members". However, such behavior may be largely rooted in psychological
traits that you might not have as much control over as you would like to
think. It probably doesn't hurt to understand it intellectually as well as
from the gut.
This is a subject that could be extended for many pages. Ask questions and
make comments if you want this subject expanded upon.
Keith Henson
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