Learning for Learning's Sake

By Lin Kristensen from New Jersey, USA (Books of the Past) 

I attended a conference this past weekend; a conference that effectively combined my two areas of work: technology and humanities. The first day was exciting and terrifying all at once. These people were so intelligent and were using technology in such advanced ways. Additionally, they had spent years in the field of humanities; all the theories and concepts they talked about that I was just trying to get a handle on came as second nature to them.

I felt I was in over my head, and contemplated returning home that night. But I didn't. I will say that night I was up most of the night, thinking about everything that had happened that day. I was upset, and part of me felt the participants, many of whom came from private colleges, surrounded themselves with this sense of elitism that seems to pervade that type of college setting. Them against me - how dare they be so damn intelligent!

But something today made me stop and think. I had been immersed in a more practical school environment, where the focus was on skills rather than just learning. I used to appreciate learning for learning's sake - just taking courses to learn about literature, for example. Now I had grown to feel that each dollar spent on education must serve a practical purpose, or else, why spend the money?

The economy may have driven me to this point (as well as the fact that one of my employers is a for-profit university, where the focus is on how to use your college courses to make money and survive.) But stepping back and looking at the whole picture, I realized that learning something - not just for work, but for mental stimulation- was not a bad thing, just as reading a book for enjoyment (something else I have done less and less as I have grown older) is not so bad, either.

Lots to think about. Now, how do I incorporate this into my daily life?