Academic Snobbery

[jagash]

This post will make comparatively less sense for the non-canadians on my friends list unless i give you a few key tidbits of information about our education system.

Trades: Talents mostly, running from plumbing to construction. Learned via apprenticeship.
College: Skills, practical training in such jobs as office admin, certain medical assistance groups, writing, computer programming ect
University: Knowledges, book-learning in such fields as the sciences, law, english ect.

I know that in the US atleast, the general label of "College" is used for both college and university so this distinction must be made.


So yes, the whole meaning of this post. Well, there is a sense of academic snobbery that subtly permeates this society on a whole. Its like a caste system, with the High-school dropouts at the bottom. Next are the high-school grads, followed by college grads, Univeristy undergrads, university grads and finally university phd's.

Those above do subtley show distrespect to those below on the caste systems. The impression that the others "arn't good enough" is shared at times. Its not said outright, but you can see it written between the lines. Many univeristy students believe that it was the 'only' option they had available, because they couln't stand to 'slum' in college or god forbid, trades. Its this quiet arrogance of the nerds, we all pay far too much money trying to get a degree so that we arn't seen as failures by society and out peers. From a logical point of view, College and trades can be dramatically more worth-while, but students toss on blinders. College is a fraction of the cost and shorter in length, with some of the programs giving excellent well-paying jobs. Trades even more, with the apprentice being paid to learn how to become in demand and get paid ridiculous amounts of money. But no, University students in many cases put themselves through an expensive an long-lasting hell for nothing but ego's sake. Not all of us are like that, but even the minority reflects poorly on students on a whole.

My appology is that i have come close to that arrogance at times. I look at friends and think "Why are they in college, they are smart enough to go to university." I didn't consider college. The caste system, elitist attitude and hubris in general rubbed off on me. Because of this, i do appologise to my friends in general and a few in specific. They know whom they are.