Column by Austin Hill

Now as it all winds down, the one central idea I would say has defined my whole collegiate experience is living life in a hurry — it is the one lesson that came with every syllabus.

I have been in school 7 years, and truth is the years have flown by. That is because college has turned into a  system that teaches young minds to move while on the run.

I came to school to be a writer, and despite learning how to write in a bunch of different styles, from various assigned topics — I do not feel I am walking out of UK as writer. I just know how to write a lot of things faster.

Every semester the one thing I learned to do was be in a hurry, and prioritize what can get done the easiest and the fastest. And that is it. How fast you can do it.

With this fast track method, are we teaching the importance of education or are teaching people how to get by?

With tuition hikes every year, students will be trying to get done as quick as they can because too many cannot afford to stay long, if they can afford it at all.

Just because someone can take five classes a semester and pass them does not mean they are absorbing anything. We are simply molding people in the philosophy of quantity over quality.

While you are in school you will try and balance the educational side of yourself against the life you must lead in order to afford education. You are forced to compartmentalize everything in your life to fit everything in. You have work, school, family, friends, and yourself and that is just the basics.

By teaching people that they must do lead a certain life at such a quick pace often leads people to lose sight of what is important.

Priorities can be skewed if people are forced too take on too much, too fast, and the damage may not be undoable. After all, most students are working along with taking classes, which usually results in to 10 or more hour days.

I am not sure what the answer would be. Maybe lowering credit requirements in lieu of tuition hikes would be an idea in order to give people time to focus on a field of study instead of forcing them to take required classes they will never use.

I do not care what anyone says, there is no need for a English major to have to have earned credit in a calculus class. Sometimes it is all the effort they must put into learning one non-major course that forces every other grade to go down. Then you wind up in school for 7 years, or something…

The goal of being a top-20 school should be about giving top-20 education, not charging fees that are in the top 20 percent in the nation for a lesson in just making it out.

Students should be able to cross that finish line and say they feel fulfilled in accomplishing the goal of education. Not that they are just glad it is over, or they are happy to have gotten by.

Let them take their own experiences away with them, but don’t make it at the expense of every important thing in their lives.

Let them appreciate the opportunity to get it right the first time, another chance may never come again.