I was thinking the other day, what is a university? In one sense the answer is obvious, but in another it is not. Of course its an institution with certian concerns, or these days, core buisness practices, there is a campus and a management heirarchy, and yah de yah .. But what it really is, and by that what i mean what it is in its essence, is a collection of minds. That is its key resource, not its buidlings or its campus or in actuality even its brand.

It is the minds that inhabit the buildings that matter, everything else is just so much backdrop. And for students it is the access to those minds that really matters because that is what is going to shape their educational experience, for good or ill (mutatis mutandis). I know that sounds slightly pretentious, but I’m trying to get at something that is a little intangiable, something that is not easily defined or measurable (there are no HESA derived stats for instance).. what does it mean to go to university? Of course peoples motivations differ, but I believe the real value does not simply lie in having an advantage in the labour market via a credential (nice as that is) but in what Kant referred to as ‘enlightenment’, by this he meant (briefly) the ability to think for oneself unaided by another.

but its late now, so gotta get my zzz’s

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Choosing A University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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