We need to stop acting like college is the only road to success in life

College is great. Where else can individuals pursue knowledge and interests while inhabiting society’s most intellectual environments? How lucky are we as a country to have so many options for higher education, as well as opportunities to make it happen? Many could argue the university is one of society’s greatest achievements, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is for everyone.

If you were to chart out humanity’s advancement on a graph, it would be a trend of exponential growth. One hundred years ago, people were riding horses into town for rations, and now drones can deliver our food to us. Last year, I had pneumonia for three grueling months, an illness that would’ve meant impending doom even 70 years ago, yet here I am writing this column today. If we were to zoom in on this trendline, we would see numerous fluctuations up and down, (sometimes us humans are dumb and make terrible mistakes, however, sometimes we learn from them), but the overall trend is positive.

At the base of this line would be the earliest humans, hunting and gathering on a hostile planet, trying to survive. Those people didn’t have time to sit under trees and contemplate the morality of man, or how many miles away that blinding thing in the sky is from them. One does not have time to ponder life’s deepest intricacies when fending off saber-toothed tigers. Free time is a recent invention, created by man when he realized most things were (relatively) under his control. It was with this extra time not spent worrying about survival that man began to think deeper and take notice of all going on around him. But while “thinkers” like Socrates and Plato were lounging in the Agora, plucking grapes off vines and discussing morality, most of the men in Athens were still fighting wars, building structures and working their trade. History likes to look fondly on thinkers, the great minds behind our achievements, but such achievements were not possible without people physically making things. You know, with their hands.

Pursuing knowledge and studying the world is wonderful, but none of it means anything if society and cities are physically falling apart. Somebody built that building those philosophers and historians are debating in, and those pipes aren’t going to fix themselves should something go terribly wrong.

Our culture tends to either look down upon, or simply neglect, trade schools. It’s great that our politicians are urging every single high school student to go to college, but the reality is that college is not the best option for everyone. For some, it is wiser financially to learn a trade and hop into the workforce immediately, no lollygagging or major-changing involved. For others, they simply aren’t interested in studying ancient Mesopotamian pottery or theoretical formulas, but would rather make useful items with their own hands.

We need to stop acting like college is the only road to success in life. Sure, it is a proven way to increase your employability, but it should not be considered the cure-all for anybody trying to make it in the world. Experts are already anticipating a dire need for trade workers in the near future, as more and more millennials opt for “finding their passion” at a university instead of considering all of the (often more practical) options available. To satisfy this need, we are going to need fewer people studying lofty abstractions and more learning how to fix that leaking pipe upstairs, training to become tomorrow’s electricians and plumbers. The demand for these services grows in parallel with society’s growth. Plus, such businesses can be surprisingly lucrative and rewarding.

College is wonderful, but it is not the key to happiness or the single golden ticket towards a life of professional success. Going to college definitely can help one achieve one's dreams or discover new fields to enter, but to treat it as somehow superior or above working a trade is not only wrong, but could also prove detrimental for ensuing generations.

Andrew Hall is a UF management junior. His column appears on Fridays.