Is College Wasted on the Young?

Going to college after high school as a young adult usually has one goal in mind - to acquire a degree for a good career in life. We are all told as youngsters that an education is important. And it is. But are we being told that so that we can better ourselves as individuals or have better careers later in life? Regardless of the reason, are we even interested in subjects like philosophy, history or biology when we are eighteen or twenty? Unless those are our majors, at that age we are most likely not interested. It isn't until we are much older that we find interest in areas of academics that we once thought were boring.

As older adults, whether we never went to college and have the mindset to go now, or whether we attended college after high school, obtained our degrees and are now interested in other subjects, we have the opportunity to get that education now that we have the desire to learn.

With the internet at our fingertips, there are online colleges as well as accredited universities that offer online classes and degrees. There are also companies out there that offer semesters worth of lessons on video or audio tapes taught by Ivy League professors in virtually every subject without college credit. In this day in age, we have a wealth of information right under our noses. As older adults, even if we don't go back to college, we can still discipline ourselves to sit down and really learn because we want to.

As someone with two undergraduate degrees, I have the desire now as an older adult to learn more. However, while obtaining those degrees I didn't take courses that were outside my major that I happen to find fascinating now. I have ordered video tapes as those I mentioned above and it is very satisfying to really learn something when I don't have to. As a youngster, I studied for my history classes because I had to. I did well enough to pass the class. Now I am learning about ancient history because I want to. There are no tests to take. No grades to worry about. I'm learning on my own time. I even take notes while watching the videos. And it is very gratifying to actually learn something I want to learn.