It changed my life. I encountered so many new ideas that challenged my upbringing. I was also able to travel through exchange programs.
I hate recommending to people that they should put themselves into crippling debt for a college education. Unfortunately, I don’t know another way to rigorously challenge your beliefs, ideas and skills outside of college. You have to be somewhat special to read diversely and vociferously to do that.
I am a huge advocate of formal education, and I think there is some undefinable benefit to “going away to college,” but in general I would say never, ever go into more than the absolute minimum of debt (based on your situation) for a bachelors degree. If you engage with the material and your professors and your classmates, you can get the real benefits a university degree actually provides.
I’d also say that while there is a certain danger in getting trapped in musty old college attitudes about what is “worth” studying, going the other way there is at least as big a risk in falling into the autodidact traps of either having no breadth of exposure or, god forbid, not having someone guide you through and out of some crazy rabbit holes (cough-ayn-rand-cough).
It changed my life. I encountered so many new ideas that challenged my upbringing. I was also able to travel through exchange programs.
I hate recommending to people that they should put themselves into crippling debt for a college education. Unfortunately, I don’t know another way to rigorously challenge your beliefs, ideas and skills outside of college. You have to be somewhat special to read diversely and vociferously to do that.
I am a huge advocate of formal education, and I think there is some undefinable benefit to “going away to college,” but in general I would say never, ever go into more than the absolute minimum of debt (based on your situation) for a bachelors degree. If you engage with the material and your professors and your classmates, you can get the real benefits a university degree actually provides.
I’d also say that while there is a certain danger in getting trapped in musty old college attitudes about what is “worth” studying, going the other way there is at least as big a risk in falling into the autodidact traps of either having no breadth of exposure or, god forbid, not having someone guide you through and out of some crazy rabbit holes (cough-ayn-rand-cough).