Research Blog #1: Initial topic Ideas

The title of this course, College!, initially caught my attention just by the simple fact that hey, I am in college so this should be an interesting topic. However, once I started to read the course description I noticed that all my feelings about the different views and ideas people hold about college start to flare up. All my (mostly negative) feelings about the admissions process and cost and all my (mostly positive) feelings about being independent and creating an identity separate and unique from the one that had been created for me during my middle school and high school years. After the first class, I started to think about all the different views people have about college. Students view it as a chance to break free (proven by the enormous amounts of students who opt to live on campus rather than commute); parents view it in multiple ways 1. as a way to experience and explore before buckling down into real life mode, 2. as purely a means to a degree, or one of many others; athletes view it as a chance to physically develop themselves in order to make it to the next level of competition; and there are many many many more views offered by the professors, legislators, and so on about the purpose of college. With all of these different ideas about what college is meant to it seems appropriate to wonder which is the right view? Or if there even exists a right view? Another question that arises is in regards to the difference between smaller, larger, private, or public schools- where do students get the most effective learning experience or college experience? With all these differences in opinions and ideas the topic of college is an instant conversation starter and interest flarer.