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Idea Laundering

Recently, I spoke to a young lady with an impressive resume for someone in her first year of college. The college she attends is plenty fancy too needless to say. A match made in heaven you would imagine. Yet, this kid is a tortured soul. She has a lot of drive and lot of skills that she has taught herself throughout her high-school years. The parents are a very bright and driven couple so this is no surprise. She arrived in college to get educated - nothing wrong with such expectation.

The only problem is that her college is all about image and projection. They are providing her an imaginary education in subjects that make no sense. And then there is this notion of inter-disciplinary studies that will presumably get unknown billions of neurons in her brain firing off all to serve the greater good of humanity. The problem is, without foundation in core disciplines not even the bare minimum neurons are firing effectively. That leads to the lost kid syndrome that ails so many students in America.

So this kid is earnestly is shuffling through these made-up courses trying to anchor on something solid and real that will prepare her for the world outside. But there is no such thing. Her heart is in the right place - she wants to do good in the world, work with companies that care about communities in which they operate. 

So our conversation turned to lessons I have learned in real life over the years and what she may do this summer to get her more ready for it. We spoke for less than thirty minutes that evening but I sensed that I had offered my young friend some measure of relief. She was able to see a tenuous path out of the wilderness of her elite, politically correct, liberal arts education to tangible things. 

My conversation with her definitely brought to mind the recent WSJ article on "idea-laundering" in academia and how it is leaving students stuffed to the gills with fake knowledge. 


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