What are colleges teaching our youth?
June 19, 2008 by ShannonCherry
Filed under Business
Yesterday I shared with my interns a few press kits that I picked up at a holiday PR trade show.
But I was shocked at their responses. “We learned how to write a press kit,” said one. “But I still don’t know what one is for.”
“Yeah,” said the other. “She never told us that!”
This shouldn’t have surprised me. I often have to re-teach PR and writing to students when they intern with me. But still, why teach them what to do if you don’t teach them why you need to do it?
(For the record: A press kit, often referred to as a media kit in business environments, is a pre-packaged set of promotional materials of a person, company, or organization distributed to members of the media to use.)
What do you think?
College was a difficult experience for me. Everyone in my family told me college taught you how to think independently, but they didn’t go to the college I went to (any of them LOL.) When I argued a “devil’s advocate” position in an ethics class to better understand an argument…I was attacked by the teacher as well as other classmates for “believing” something horrible.
I didn’t believe it, I just wanted to argue a dissenting opinion to see how it held up. Even in high school we were taught to debate things we did not believe in, because you needed to see two sides of the story in order to know your position was sound.
Colleges and Universities are just producing a bunch of young adults that know how to think one way – the way that keeps them in jobs they hate, working for people they don’t know.
It’s a sad state of affairs.
The nature of colleges is to teach a process. That is the only thing that can be graded. Independent thinking, socializing and get-up-and-go attitudes are un-gradeable.
I think college is great and is mandatory for all, but not because of the classes. Students must take responsibility for their own college experience – and out of the classroom they need to learn how to think independently, socialize effectively, and to get-up-and-go.