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Howdy All,

I have never been able to finish a single semester of college. Two seperate times once at 18, and once at 25 I attempted to get a college degree. Both times I could not tolerate nor stomach the propaganda that was bombarding me.

I have done pretty damn good for myself without a degree, but at times I wonder if I am really missing out. It is not as though I am uneducated. I have educated myself about a good many things. I just don't have the piece of paper.

I guess my question is for those who were or are Objectivists in college. Quite simply, how do you do it? How do you stomach the looter bullsh*t that seems to be infecting all the major colleges? OR should I not bother, and just continue my education on my own?

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It all depends.

What do you want to do with your life? What are your goals?

Are your interests in the more rational disciplines, like medicine or science, or are you planning a career in the humanities?

What exactly do you need to know in order to do your job and will college offer you that?

For me, going to college to study philosophy was an invaluable tutorial into the workings of an academic world that I am entirely opposed to, in order to help me understand it and fight against it.

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This is a problem that everyone faces to some degree--not just Objectivists. I would highly recommend that you research the schools in your area. This might make all the difference to your educational career. Read the course descriptions from the institution's catalog: do they stress racism and postmodernism over reason and truth? Is there any kind of respect for the Western intellectual tradition or is the emphasis on deconstruction and interpretation?

Once you pick the right place to study, there is a method that you can use to help you through your studies: Devil's Advocate. This is the approach that I used in my undergraduate studies (I don't think that it's a good method to use in graduate school but that's another topic) and it helped me immensely. It consists of taking one mindset in class (i.e., take the material in and let it operate in your mind) and then quite a different mindset outside of class when your coursework is completed (i.e., this material is wrong because... or this material is right because...). Although it takes a lot of hard extra work, I found this approach to be immensely beneficial. In class I would put Objectivism aside and I would put on my "academic thinking" cap. Outside of class I was integrating my coursework with what I knew to be true or false. This both enhanced and strengthened my understanding of what I was learning in college as well as furthering my understanding of Objectivism.

It's never too late to get a degree. Even though there is a lot of hogwash in college, having a degree greatly increases your career opportunities and that is an objectively good thing.

[Edit: added following]

Just a word on why I call this the "Devil's Advocate" approach: as the Devil's Advocate, you can give arguments for a view that you do not actually believe in. This is all that honest teachers actually expect from their students, i.e., the ability to summarize material.

Edited by Bowzer
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It's never too late to get a degree. Even though there is a lot of hogwash in college, having a degree greatly increases your career opportunities and that is an objectively good thing.

This is absolutely true. In fact, I am of the opinion that most 18-year-olds are not prepared to make the kind of decision asked of college freshman - What do I want to do for the rest of my life?

I am extremely glad I didn't go to college right out of high school. I am 25 right now and will be returning to school next year. In the past seven years I have gone through an immense number of personal changes, which of course have a huge impact on the type of work I wish to do. I don't think these kind of changes are unusual in the least. Rather, they are the norm.

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...I guess my question is for those who were or are Objectivists in college.  Quite simply, how do you do it?  How do you stomach the looter bullsh*t that seems to be infecting all the major colleges?

Sleep through the worst of the classes that I'm required to take. :)

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I'm studying computer engineering at a large state school, and my experience hasn't been bad for my Objectivist tendencies. In math and engineering classes, obviously, it is pretty hard to put any subjectivist propaganda in the class material. The biggest problem I had with "looter bullsh*t" was in a political science class on public policy. In that class, we discussed what were called "collective action problems" which were all basically prisoner's dilemma type of problems in public policy. The prisoner's dilemma is ficticious problem in a free market, as has been discussed on this forum, but in class it was presented as a real problem with capitalism.

Obviously, this sort of thing is hard to stomach as an Objectivist, but if anything, it makes you more keenly aware of the sort of opinions held by the general public. It also offers an opportunity to argue with these people, and helps one to solidify his views. Even though students who are aware of the problems with collectivsm are rare, I think it is still important that we represent the alternative view in class.

In the right frame of mind, it can actually be amusing. For instance, I go to school in Iowa, and you should have seen the reactions of the farmer's kids when I supported abolishing all farm subsidies. You would have thought I had just threatened to shoot their puppies or something.

And of course, as AshRyan pointed out, sleep is always an option.

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