There are many defenses for the importance of active engagement in the classroom as students.
In Western culture, for instance, there is a noble idea that education not only expands an individual’s knowledge but also improves character. Many arguments connect a university education with these noble aspirations. This argument is not one of them.
The unavoidable fact of the current American university system is that it costs money. The receipt of a college education is only possible as the result of payment — whether from parents, students, donors or the bank — and the charge is for classes, not a diploma. The primary purpose of a university is education. The diploma is merely the recognition of achievement in the classroom.
This experience in the university system is fundamentally structured around the classroom setting. This structure results both from the Western tradition of education and the attempt to formally organize the dissemination of knowledge. Therefore, the classroom is the best and primary source of education within the university system.
Being in class, of course, requires more than mere physical presence in the classroom. It demands deriving the greatest benefit available to you as an individual student with your unique background and situation. Acts that prevent you from doing so — skipping, texting, playing games, sleeping or doing other work in class — deny you the fullest educational experience possible.
We all know this. What most of us deny, however, is the monetary wastefulness such acts also entail. You are not required to be in college. Legally, all obligation ended when you turned 16. Your time here at USC is voluntary. And it is expensive. That class in which you texted for the duration? It’s costing you a lot more than the 10 cents per text.
If you are wasting your time in class or not going at all, you are failing to live up to the value of that monetary investment. This is inexcusable. Employees wasting so much money are fired without hesitation. Public officials are voted out of office. Sadly, there is no equivalent for students; expulsion is merely a secondary, outside denial of the educational experience.
The university experience, luckily, is varied and rich and not limited to the classroom. However, when you as a student do not give your educational experience priority and fail to maximize on your time in the classroom, you are not worth the amount of money being spent on your education. It is as simple as that. If you want to change that, change your behavior and your attitude.
In a nobler world, money would have no effect on an individual’s investment in his or her university education. Then again, in a nobler world, all university students would appreciate and respect the intrinsic value of an education.
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