why are you in college?

Question

what is your reason's for being there?
and you can't answer saying "to earn money when you finish", money cant be your answer also you can answer to make my family proud, the answer has to relate to you and your thoughts

Answer 1

Beacause learning is much more fun than working. That's the main reason why I'm doing my first master now, and why I'll make a second one, and a Ph.D. after that. To hear every day something new is interesting for me; to sit on a desk and do the same things every day is lousy.
Which leads to the second reason. Most jobs require you to do the same old thing every day. Some don't, and in order to do them, you need a college degree. Example: software engineering (the job I want to get). Every project has its own challenges, and the technology changes so rapidly that you never get to do the same thing twice. Compare it to an "ordinary" job like a cashier at Wal Mart: every day you sit there, and wave packages of cereal and dog food over a barcode scanner, 10000 times a day, or you take loads of potato chips from the storage room to the aisles. I'd die there, I did it for 2 months and I felt like my brain was dissolving in vacuum. I want a job which is creative and non-repetetive, and because I'm not talented enough to make art, I have to be an engineer, an architect or the like, and that is only possible after I've been to college. It isn't for the money; I am making debts just to finance years of learning.
Oh, and another one: My mom went to university, my dad has a Ph. D., my grandparents all went to college or university, all family friends went to university, all my classmates went to university... Should I be the dumbest of all? It would be humiliating, like being unable to read or write.

Answer 2

Many parents (and spouses for mature students) these days discourage degrees for the sole purpose of learning, like philosophy and history and media studies. There has to be a job at the end of it. They also don't like the idea of going just to party and have a good time, the degree must be "serious".

That said, if I was super rich, I'd go back and study history or something like that. I can learn on my own, but there's something about the competitive nature of trying to get an A, something about seeing how fast I can take down notes in lectures, something about the sense of satisfaction of meeting a deadline without the pressure of a boss.

I finished for the wrong reasons, to get a job in a certain field... I wish I went for nobler reasons...