jrockway's Journal: College Apping

I just realized what a market college-related companies have. Apparently everyone wants to take the SAT about 5 times, the ACT 3, and buy lots of cramming books. Why learn real chemistry from a textbook when you can buy the Kaplan "Cram for the SATII" books? "Hey I memorized all the SAT words but can't use them in real writing! That's not defeating the purpose of the test!"

What bothers me more is that people think that if they get a good test score that their learning is over. They want to pay $40,000 a year to a "good" college so they can get "easy A's". Doesn't anyone want to learn? I personally want to go to college so that I can learn about things that don't come from books easily (number theory, linear algebra, and so on... books relating to these topics are, uh, dry), and use them to solve problems. I want to spend the rest of my life solving problems, not "getting rich".

Anyway, most of this discussion stems from my roommate. He is a fairly intellegent individual. He certainly works hard. Unfortunately, he thinks college is the end all. He gets into a good college and the rest of his life is great. He'll be a spine surgeon making $900,000 a year starting (he's investigated this already; apparently that's the highest-paying field). He wants to go to Harvard so "people will think [he's] smart automatically" (and because of "grade inflation" -- "that way i won't have to work").

So I guess I'll end this rant* with a question: Is it naive of me to think that I should get an education and use it? Or should I just try to get rich?

I guess that's a loaded question, but tell me what _your_ plans are. I hope I'm not alone.

* I can't write too well "tonite". Maybe I should buy a SATII Writing guide. That "shud" help me :)