Let me ask you this: Why are you in college?

One thing I learned quickly during my first few weeks on campus last year is that hardly anybody valued or enjoyed the mandatory class “What is the Good Life?” My teaching assistant for the class acknowledged this stigma himself on our first day of class. But he also posed to us a question, one that stopped me personally in my tracks. It was a simple question: Why are you in college?

Most people answered in order to earn money or to get a good job. Some said because it is the logical next step out of high school or because we were told to. It seemed as if nobody, including me, had chewed on this question and instead sort of stepped into college life blindly, without any self-reflection as to what college is for and why it is important. Certainly, most parents view college as a means to achieving the American dream: financial self-sufficiency, a successful career, becoming a leader, etc. I’d say that is why most people in my Good Life class suggested college to them was like a career trampoline, simply because we were taught as much.

When an older man learned I was majoring in English, for example, he quickly retorted I must enjoy being poor. I find this is a common assumption: A major is only useful monetarily or economically. College, within this assumption, becomes a sacred place for the remnants of childhood and adolescent freedoms to be exhausted and left empty upon graduating. In other words: Enjoy college, party, have loads of fun and major in something that will make you money, because it’s the last stage in your life that allows for ultimate freedom. To paraphrase the Bible, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow, we work.

This view of college, in short, is a utilitarian perspective, in that college is only meaningful according to its usefulness in gaining a great career.

Is this view wrong? No. I would say it is rather too narrow. For it would be lunacy to believe entirely that college is not for career preparation. That is an essential characteristic of college; it prepares us for the job market, for adulthood. But I see so much more meaning in the ideal of a liberal college education. It is not just a place for revelry, though that is an ingredient; it is not just a career trampoline, though that is important.

Rather, I see college as a place for self-examination, for inquiry and truth seeking. This time in our lives is a time for questioning — why am I here? What is a good life? Where do I come from, and where am I going? We are in a unique position, surrounded by thousands of people in similar life stages but also engaged with professors who have passed through our current stage. We can ask these questions to and amongst our friends and also listen to those older than us who have wrestled with answers. It is a sacred time for metaphysical discovery and learning about what it means to be a human being.

Having fun with our friends and seeking out a fruitful career are encompassed within my ideal of college, but they are not determining factors of it. There is a deeper meaning to what college is for. As Socrates once famously said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I say the unexamined college life is not worth the price of admission. For it is the capacity to address life’s fundamental questions that, in a profound sense, is an essential constituent of what it means to be a human being. To me, college is the empty canvas where we can put this capacity into practice. It is the place where we can sharpen our abilities to think critically, listen and understand.

So I put the question to you: Why are you in college?

Scott Stinson is a UF English sophomore. His columns appear on Wednesdays.