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Show Professional students shafted in job world Dear me. You mean you're a junior in journalism and you haven't even taken writing and reporting yet. How do you expect to graduate in two years? Well, lady. I've probably done ten times as much writing and reporting as anybody who's taken the class. But that won't count toward graduation and of course you want to graduate. One of the mainsprings of American Amer-ican society is the idea that to be a learned person, one must have one or more college degrees. The guy who spent most of his time at fraternity frat-ernity parties and football games and just barely cheated his way through exams, but wound up with the certificate, is revered. The guy who's been attending classes off and on for years, intensely in-tensely interested in knowledge, but could never settle down to one area of interest, is going to have a rough time in the business world. As far as the personnel directors are concerned, he is not educated. Gov. Calvin Rampton made the statement last year at budget-setting budget-setting time that professional students should be barred from attending the University. Not only is the student who wants to learn without any kind of material reward dangling in front of his nose shunned by employers, but lawmakers would like to see him kept from pursuing his education. In this dog-eat-dog world we've got, the student who wants to accumulate wisdom for wisdom's sake is out of it. He isn't knocking everyone else aside for the grand prize, and so what use is he to the corporate moneygrabbers? He'd probably develop a product better than his competitors and not even bother to raise the price. What are you going to do with a guy like that? by Jean Johnson |