The pressure on young people to get into top universities has become ridiculous and counter- productive. They are expected to get straight A’s and then frantically play sport all weekend. They feel they have to study into the small hours, are constantly exhausted, get injured on the playing field and have no time to think, relax and smell the roses.
All this is for prestige and for the expectation of large incomes in the future. There are more and better things young men and women should be doing: reading the world’s best books, enjoying the beauties of the planet, debating and discussing life and love. They should be educating themselves to prepare for a full and happy life, not preparing themselves for Wall Street or the high-pressure practice of law. These do not lead to pleasure or happiness; they just condemn you to a relentless rat-race in a gilded cage. At the end of it what do you have? A lot of money which is a headache to look after and protect. And you leave it to children who have done nothing to amass it and won’t thank you for it, either.
But who around them will tell the kids the truth?
“The American education system in general, and the college admissions process in particular, seem intent on creating cautious, careerist adults-in-training”. (part of a letter from Pia de Jong to the Washington Post, March 23, 2014). The writer points out the intense pressure put upon teenagers, who are expected to know what career they intend to follow, There is no room for imagination, playfulness and enjoyment in life, only commitment to joining rat-race and pretending to want to start another version of Facebook. The college admission system is attended by “a grim,winner-take-all test of character, anxiety, guilt and fear that your child will be left behind”. Youngsters mature at different rates and smart young people can be un-focussed at 17 (all I wanted to do at 17 was to travel the world, following in the footsteps of my highly adventurous grandfather,who never went to university but found gold in the Klondike).
“All this is for prestige and for the expectation of large incomes in the future.”
—————–
Another spot-on post. The sentence quoted above is a true and pathetic reflection on the realities, I’m afraid. Raising children to run after “prestige” and money? Absolutely horrible.