November 30, 2003
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Topic: BIG PLANS FOR DAN
Hey everyone. I’d like to thank you all for visiting my site. I’m proud to say I now have some regular viewers on my site, and I’m literally witnessing, as can you all, the development of an open community, where thoughts and inspiration are feeding off each other, and a sort of momentum is developing here in Xanga land.
I hope you realize this is just the beginning for this site. Maybe I haven’t given a clear vision, or demonstrated an ability to be more than another person w/ an online journal, but as I look at the other sites on the “featured content list” I realize it’s only a matter of time before this site and others like it become the norm, because this is the perfect forum for passionate minds to get together.
With all that said, I’d like to bring to you my latest development. I’ve just gotten off the phone with a friend of mine from Baltimore. He’s having a successful start with a hedge firm there, but most importantly, he’s learning a ton of stuff. In fact, now that he has some professional experience, he reflects that college did little to prepare him for the real world. We discussed our college experiences for a while, and decided that would be the project that I’ve been looking for:
A book. Not a blog. Not an article. Not a conversation. A real live book.
Topic: Higher education, reflections by students and professors
The mission: I’m hoping to take 6months to a year, starting probably in the fall of ’04, traveling around to different universities in the USA. Through interviews, observation, and any number of other methods with students, administrators, professors, community members, families, you name it, I hope to figure out approximately at what level our countries colleges and universities are functioning at.
After assessing the various components that make up the experience, it will be the goal of my book, or a follow-up book, to explore opportunities for raising the bar of college educations for all.
So, this is day #1 of the project. I can assure you, the nature of the project will change and evolve, but it is a project that must be investigated. It is also a project, like most projects, that neesd support. So, hopefully that support will start here, w/ some grassroots discussions, getting deeper in topics, getting deeper in comments, and spreading the word, like some of you have already (thanks again). OK, time to send out this post, and start thinking about the next.
-Dan
p.s. the skin i’m using isn’t letting me post my box of links, if anyone knows of a skin that does allow that, or how to get than in, i just learned the basic html, but it only shows up on my private page, that’d be great. thanks.
Comments (5)
Hi, Dan. Your book sounds like a great idea. In many ways, college-educated people (myself included) are the least in touch with the real world. Our educational system, all throughout, is not really meant to educate, but to create people who don’t really know much about the real world, and don’t know how think for themselves. Some would say that knowledge, which should belong to everyone, has been stolen by the universities, and only those with permission or money are allowed to have access to it. Knowledge should not belong to professionals, but to all of us who are trying to understand the world in which we live.
As for your your personal module that you are wondering how to use, I don’t have extensive knowledge of HTML, so what I did was use a webpage creation program and then I copied the HTML into the module. Netscape Communicator, which comes free with Netscape, is a good basic one.
You also don’t need to use a skin on your site. I find them to be too restricting because I don’t know how to change the HTML, either. I couldn’t find any that had the features I wanted, so it was easier to just change the colors of the basic site format.
cool picture :]
College is an oportunity to get in touch with the real world. But they don’t give it to you. You have to meet the right people, get into the right department, look in the right directions, and self-motivate the hell out of yourself at the expense, sometimes, of what they are actually trying to teach you.
Maybe I’ve just been fortunate. I feel like college has really helped me to find the direction I want to go in with my life. But then, I’m 23 and have been a part of the real world for a while.
Funny you mention it. I was writing my college app essay a few minutes ago, and am currently putting off finishing it.
I second the motion that the book is a great idea. Something you might want to consider: I think a big part about how people function in college (from what I’ve been able to observe from the outside) depends on previous education (obviously). The psychologies that sitting at a desk, listening to lectures, competing against your peers, and various other mentally unhealthy practices inflict begin when you are a squirmy little brat in Grade 1.
Through high school, you are taught to succumb to these habits, which might be good for a “successful career”, but are not good for the individual (or people as a whole, for that matter).
Basically, what I am preparing to say in my rambling, round-about way, is that if you want to fully cover how to raise the bar for education, there are some significant changes that can be suggested for grades where students aren’t even thinking about college. Such alterations of the system are to massive to be successfully lobbied for, but it would be worth mentioning grade/high school, at least in an intro to the book or something.
Wow, too much commenting. Sorry about that. And the reason you have a fan following is because you post such intelligent entries. In case you were wondering.
Hmm maybe that’s why I learned something in college. I almost flunked out of highschool on numerous occasions and I’m currently on academic suspension (ending in January) from college. I always tend to study what interests me more than what is assigned.
College has been good for me because I’m a terrible student!