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🎓 98% of LinkedIn users have a higher education. Here's everything wrong with the education system.

A machine making factory?

Author

Leila Jaafar
November 09, 2023

I want to preface by saying I myself am an Engineering student, and remain very grateful for my education. The point of this article is to cultivate awareness, or more so, it serves as a reminder.  

Creativity and innovation.

School says: “Don't dare to be creative, follow what you've been told and be obedient. Don't challenge the status quo. The rules are everything.” While really, you will be rewarded for your creativity and the new things you bring out to the world.

Every great invention was once a novel thing that most people couldn’t accept. With great risks come great rewards. Sometimes you have to set your own rules and follow them.

Individuality.

“We treat every single person the same way, we don’t appreciate the difference and diversity between minds, between what each student likes and knows how to do. Instead, we need everyone to know all that we offer in our curriculum, or else they are failures. We don’t care if you’re a linguistic genius, you have to be good at math, physics, chemistry, geography… We do not appreciate individuality. Don’t stand out.”

Meanwhile, the truth of the matter is that you don’t have to know everything. You can use your unfair advantages, the things that light up your soul, the things you are good at, and you’ll still have a chance at succeeding even if you don’t know every single thing.

If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. 

Albert Einstein

School says, “don’t think too much. Don’t analyze, think critically, or deconstruct what you’re given. Just consume.”

In questioning everything, in deconstructing a whole into parts, and then parts into a whole, you can create a completely novel thing, and that is something the world appreciates and rewards. In self awareness lies an awareness of the world.

Passion.

“It’s wrong to follow what lights your soul on fire, you should do what is accepted, you should be a doctor, an engineer…And you need to be working really hard, you need to give one third of your life to work you don’t care about.” 

Versus, real value only comes when you do what you’re obsessed with. And bringing value to others is the key to gaining money. Every service, product or business provides some sort of value, thus it is profitable, no matter the niche.

Sameness.

The education system emerged with the industrial revolution, (for context, that’s the 18th century!) And nothing has changed since then. Curriculums are more or less the same, and so are the structure of classes and the schedules.

“We will teach you things you will barely need, and you have to use the limited resources we provide. Learn the rest on your own. Taxes? emotional intelligence? Personal finance? Yeah, we don’t do that here.”

But in the real world, nothing stays the same. Today’s technology would be sorcery for someone from a few decades ago. Cars, houses even, everything changed and evolved. It is a completely new world from centuries ago. There is an abundance of learning tools, and you’d be a fool to ride a donkey when you have a car.

Here is Elon Musk’s suggestion for studying:

“Let’s say you are trying to teach people about how engines work, a more traditional way of teaching will be teaching you all about screwdrivers and wrenches. You will have courses on screwdrivers and courses on wrenches .. this is a very difficult way to do it. A much better way would be like, here is the engine. Now let’s take it apart. How are we going to take it apart? It would be best if you had a screwdriver. That’s what the screwdriver is for. You need a wrench. That’s what the wrench is for. Then a very important thing happens, which is that the relevance of the tools becomes apparent.”

Failure.

“Don't ask for help from your classmates, it's called cheating.” Versus, networking with people is how you get opportunities, asking for help is how you learn.

“Failure is bad, you should never fail.” But when it comes to personal goals and things that truly matter, failure is inevitable. It's okay to fail, that's how you learn. Failure is your launching pad to success.

Programming.

“We make you believe that there is only one way, only one career path. Only one right answer.”

But really, we are complex and messy human beings, not robots, that’s why programming is an exact science while psychology isn’t. 

Challenge and question what you’ve been taught to believe, not everything we’re programmed with is good and yet not everything should be rebelled against. The point is, find what works for you. Live life on your own terms.

We change, we fluctuate, life pulls us in different directions. We are a whole and we are parts. As said in one of my favorite quotes by Oscar Wilde in “The Picture Of Dorian Gray”: “To define is to limit.” 

How can we be one thing? How can we do only one thing? How can we limit our limitless souls?

💖 Let’s connect!

If you liked this email, check out my: LinkedIn, Medium, and đť•Ź (formerly known as Twitter)

📝Author’s Note:

Greetings to the void.

I don’t hate school, but I don’t necessarily love it. I always seem to be aware of its flaws and deficiencies though.
I also don’t exactly agree with quitting college or leaving education completely. The cool thing now seems to be entrepreneurship and business.
I believe people should do what works for them. What’s been normalized is not necessarily bad or should be rebelled against, and what’s new and trendy doesn’t have to become the norm. One of the greatest joys, I believe, is to live life on your own terms.

Talk soon!

Leila,

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