Outlook (November 12, 1957)

7 December 2006 at 11:57 am (1957, Newspaper column)

So You Answer the Questions

The question for today is, “Where is we?” As members of a university, we have, in some obscure manner, been chosen to lead different segments of our civilization in a very significant way in a very short time. By merely being allowed to attend college we have been adjudged the “cream of the crop.” This should mean something even if the amount of milk in the bottle is negligible.

In order to prepare ourselves for our future role in our society, we must develop a proper attitude. Apathy is not the answer, nor is wile. Especially if wile degenerates into guile. Guile, if you don’t already know, is known colloquially as bluff, and is exemplified in the common practice known as “snowing him.”

We are on the periphery of an elusive entity known as knowledge, and are expected to absorb some of it. This absorption is not an osmotic process, and this knowledge has been placed in our paths so that we will be able to get it, not get around it.

By this time, 90 per cent of the students who started reading this column have contemptuously gone on to other and greater enterprises. This would serve to make the purpose of this article almost non-existent, as those of you who are reading it are not in need of what I have to say. I shall continue though, with the optimistic assumption that a few others have continued to read along.

I agree that a college degree is a “prestige device.” It is nice to have one. But there are many ways in which to get one; not all of them are valid. One can bluff himself to a diploma, but this is of no benefit to himself or anyone else. In fact, if one has to do this in order to obtain his degree, and if he has no real interest in the courses that he is taking, (which we must assume, except for certain “required courses,” is true if he doesn’t enjoy them) then he has no business in going for that degree.

If any of you feel that what I am saying effects you, and you are interested in obtaining an honest diploma and in learning something that you might even enjoy doing in life, let me say that there are ways of finding out where you abiliites and interests actually lie.

First of all, there is a department on campus known as the Counseling Center which has been designed for the specific purpose that I have outlined above. This is located in building EE in the “gulch.” For those of tyou who feel it a stigma to go to psychologists in order to find out what you are best suited for, I would suggest that you have conferences with faculty members in the various fields in which you are interested. If there are some of you left who feel that this also is rather impractical, I would suggest that you take an interest in what you are now pursuing. You might even get to like that. Beyond this, I have no suggestion.

For those of you that take some of my suggestions seriously, the answer to that question, “Where is we?” might make itself clear. You might answer it by saying, “We is here.” Then you might even ask yourselves, “What is we going to do about it?” This answer I cannot predict.