Yet another chapter in "Shop Class as Soulcraft" has me nodding my head in agreement, but I feel helpless in the changing the prevading system of work in our culture! I feels like his critque is too little too late. It's my last year of college; an education that encouraged mindless teamwork, reading to get through the text, and talking in circles. I have often felt as Crawford did in his InfoTrac job. He was filling a quota and not actually able to think about the articles he had to read. That's often how college feels. You are here to get through the work, to get a job, and who knows if you are actually able to do anything by the end? The object is to play the game right. You have to say the right things, act as a team member instead of a crew member, and then maybe you will survive.
I don't think you have to fall into this common trap. My education has not been focused on the job at the end, but what I want to learn now. I love history, and many other topics, and did not minor in anything because I just wanted to take a variety of classes in topics I actually wanted to learn about. Most of the time it was a good experience, but I did have to jump through some hoops and now I am at the point where I have to think about a job and I'm wondering if this culture will allow someone like me to enter it. I went to school to learn and to learn how to think!
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It seems a lot of the job market doesn't even care what you majored in, as long as you have a Bachelor's of some sort. You are one step ahead of a lot of people in Crawford's mind because you chose a major out of pure interest instead of how to make the most money once you graduate. In my majors I think I have received a pretty good education, allowing and encouraging thought (as long as the homework still gets done). But in my last semester here, I have experienced more mindless teamwork than previous semesters and it is driving me to stop caring in classes. Or maybe that's just senioritis kicking in. Either way, I know that once I escape the hoops of college, I know there will always be hoops to jump through in whatever job I choose. I can only hope that those hoops will just be a very small part of my job.
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