The Red and Black

Issue date: 8/19/08 Section: Opinions

JOHN KNOX

What is college all about? Football.

Partying. Getting a job. A fast track to professional school.

That's the modern college experience, and by nearly all accounts, it's a blast. But is that all there is to it?

We used to think so. Since the 1960s, U.S. college freshmen have been surveyed by the Higher Education Research Institute of UCLA regarding their objectives and attitudes. In 1970, 79.1 percent of freshmen reported "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" was "very important or essential" to them. In contrast, in 1970 only 36.2 percent said "being well off financially" was very important or essential.

Even in 1980, equal percentages (62.5 percent) of freshmen valued a philosophy of life and financial well-being. But by 1990, the tables had turned and the rout was on: 72.3 percent chose wealth, 45.9 percent chose philosophy of life. Since then, the percentages have remained virtually unchanged.

But just what is this elusive "philosophy of life" that yesterday's students so highly prized?

Twenty-five years ago I was a new college freshman, arriving on campus with a slew of national awards, a bunch of brilliant friends and a big head. Within a year, I'd suffered through mononucleosis, a painful break-up and the rapid dissolving of my high-school friendships - not to mention some boring lecture classes. I had to take a long, hard look at myself and figure out who I really was, independent of my awards and my friends. What did I believe? Why did I believe it? What matters, what doesn't, and why?

Now, maybe you can do this kind of soul-searching at the football game, or at the bar, or on the job. I did it with my classmates, and my professors, and with the voices that suddenly spoke to me "loud and bold" through literature: Keats and Tolstoy; Shakespeare and Conrad; Euripides and Dreiser; Chinua Achebe and Will Campbell; Flannery O'Connor and Marilynne Robinson.

In high school I read "serious literature" on occasion partly to impress others; in college I read voraciously because I was searching for answers to questions upon which my future depended.

With my professors, friends and classes as guides, I arrived at those answers. I didn't reject everything I grew up with by a long shot, but I did become a new person with different career objectives and a sense of what this amazing, paradoxical universe is all about and why I'm in it. That, I think, is what a meaningful philosophy of life is supposed to look and sound like.

Why, then, are we so ashamed to talk about this in the context of college? We yell our heads off or bawl our eyes out for the Bulldogs. We perform even more outrageous acts downtown. We invest an infinitude of time in the creation of the perfect résumé. But what about the essential process of "soulmaking," as Keats called it? Mention something that serious, and uncomfortable silence ensues.

And yet we yearn for it. The late Randy Pausch became a YouTube sensation when he gave a "last lecture" that moved hearts and ignited minds. Imagine, millions of people willingly subjected themselves to a professor's lecture! Millions more cherish movies such as "Dead Poets Society" or "The Matrix," both of which speak to life-changing educational experiences: Carpe diem. Free your mind. Know thyself. O Captain! My Captain! Wake up.

I don't know kung fu and I don't yawp barbarically, but I profess this much: there can be more to college, if you want it. Interested?

- John Knox is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography.

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