A Universal Challenge

There has been a lot in the news over the last few days about how stressed university students are and what administrations are doing to alleviate the stress. There has also been editorials on why there is so much stress. Like any debate there are various points of view ranging from society not preparing adolescents for the transition to adulthood to the dire straits the world faces piling onto the shoulders of our future leaders. Before I go any further on my viewpoints there are a few things about higher education I generally believe that should be shared.

A university degree does not entitle you to a job. I'm not saying it is worthless, in fact it is quite the contrary. A degree indicates a lot about a person. It shows a person is capable of learning. It shows a person is capable of following instructions. It shows a person is capable of seeing a set of requirements through to the end. It shows potential employers a lot about an individual. As such it does carry weight. What a degree does is open doors. It will give you a leg up on those who do not have a degree and allow you a chance to show who you are and how you will fit within an organization. A degree does not give you a job but it gives you an opportunity to compete for one.

The ultimate consequence of failure for a student at university is low. If you do a poor job of completing an assignment the worst you are going to see is a bad grade. Several bad grades may result in the institution deciding its time to part ways but that is about the worst of it. In the real world the consequence of failure can be very high. Your decisions and work product can bankrupt a company. It may not seem too bad except there is a good chance that somebody's retirement savings is probably locked up in the equity of that company. You may throw a nation off a fiscal cliff and cause undue hardship for an entire generation. Your decisions may end someone's livelihood. Your decision may directly lead to someone not having a paycheque. Your decisions may have direct safety or health impacts on others. Often they may not even have the expertise to make the decision themselves or even more drastically not have the mental capacity to protect themselves. In the real world your actions and decisions can have real consequence of failure.

Now if you are thinking that university is still much too stressful then maybe its not for you. If you want real stress take a job that has high and real consequences to failure. Make sure you are responsible for other peoples lives, the financial well being of some peoples retirement savings, and some paycheques. Then you will see what stress can be. Going to university is intended to teach you about yourself so you can manage the stresses of the real world. It is supposed to challenge you in a safe environment so you learn how you react and get better at it. It is supposed to show you how to take chances and spot potential failure so when you leave you can mitigate the chances of ruining it all.

University is the training camp for life. Sports teams run training camp before they complete to prepare the team. The idea is to have everything worked out so when you face the real challenge you have a real chance to be successful. The harder you work in training camp the better you will perform when it is on the line. You have to push yourself at training camp to find out what you can't do and then devise a way to fix it or avoid it. The great teams leave nothing to chance. They know their weaknesses better than their strengths and work to not let their weaknesses beat them. University should be treated the same way and the best ones do.

University is supposed to hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it and the credential at the end would not mean anything. If you want your degree to help you get that key interview then you have to work for it. That's all there is to it. The process should challenge the beliefs you hold. It should make you open to new ideas. I took a course titled 'Death and Concepts of the Afterlife.' It was a course in religion. It was taught by Rabbi Rose. He was excellent at delivering the course and one day he indicated that if you finish your degree and it never made you challenge what you believe then you should ask for your money back. To be challenged you have to think and read and work and debate. Without it your life will not be examined and the world will pass you by. Without it you will be just another existence. Once you learn how, the stress can be channelled into a rush. You can feed off it and push yourself. You can learn how to tackle the things that are hard.

I haven't been a university student since 1999. Maybe the world has changed and it really is too stressful but I doubt it. The best will always rise up and meet the challenges. They will not always do it right but since they are the best they will learn from it and do it better next time. That's what university is all about.