Learn Voraciously (2015)

I have always felt this. When I joined my new workplace, I spent quite a lot of out of office hours on learning more in my field. To be honest, it really paid off. Studying after uni really matters.

Because most people don't go to college to "get an education." They just go there as a hoop-jumping prerequisite to hopefully get "a job" and with that, a middle-class lifestyle. It's not that they want to know Shakespeare (running towards an academic milestone), but rather, they simply want to avoid "flipping burgers" (running away from a miserable economic existence).

The author appears to be from Spain. I don't know how the culture there perceives higher education but in the USA, the vast majority of students go to college to "get a piece of paper" as a signaling mechanism.[1] As another comparison, Germany doesn't seem to have as much of a social stigma for young adults pursuing the apprenticeship track instead college. In America, the "trades" of plumbers/electricians/welders are lower social rank than office workers with a degree.

For most (especially those not pursuing STEM), any education received -- is a side effect and not the primary purpose of school. This is not a negative judgement about those students. They do want to learn ... they'd just rather not learn about Shakespeare at college just so they can copy paste numbers from one Excel spreadsheet to another in their post-graduation professional job. Those people do continue learning but the topics they pursue on their own don't match the typical university curriculum. (e.g. they learn more about cooking, travel destinations, or other hobbies that interest their minds.)

The university was originally for well-off children of aristocracy or those training for religious studies. Perhaps those students pursued "education" purely for education's sake... along with the "grand tour" of Europe, etc. Those young adults didn't have to get a job so the "purpose" of university schooling wasn't intermingled with impure motives of economics. (E.g. I get my rich dad's inheritance regardless of how well I learn Greek/Latin). However, over the last few decades, higher education became a sorting mechanism for employers (e.g. this job application with no college degree gets rejected) so it's perfectly logical that students these days just go to college to check off that box for potential employment.

[1]http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/04/educational_sig_...

Crazy times.

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Personally, I found the discussion about flossing quite interesting.