Stranger Dinners! Strange, right?

Stranger Dinners. At first, you think of it meaning a dinner that is not like the others. This is exactly right, but take it more literal. Literally having dinner with strangers. Strange idea, right?

Arianna Davolos wrote about her crazy new idea in Share or Die. Arianna just wanted to get out of college into the real world to have freedom. As an artist, she wanted to talk to people and experience things outside her university and just spend her time doing what she loved, making art.

She soon found out that people don’t have time for art in the real world. With people constantly working to pay their rent, it’s not something most people take the time to appreciate. She found that school hadn’t prepared her for what lied ahead.

This hit me. We always say that college prepares us for the real world, but is that always true? Of course, it all depends on the person, but, for some people, it’s not exactly what they need.

After a while of working part time at a frame shop and working on projects in her free time at home, she wondered, “Is this what everyone else is doing?”

“Is this it?”

            This is when she decided to start having Stranger Dinners. She maybe did it out of loneliness, she doesn’t know. She just wanted to find out about other people’s lives. She wanted to know more about the big world she was living in. She thought of sharing ideas and perspectives with everyone, not just people close to you. She wanted to find out what life was like.

She found that everyone stumbles his or her way through life. Sometimes people catch breaks and sometimes they don’t. Some people are happy and some aren’t. It’s just how life goes.

            I really liked this part. When you’re down in the dumps, everyone’s life seems better than yours, but is it really? You really don’t think about how life is just life. Stuff happens, and then you die. Everyone is just trying to make the best life they can, facing, and potentially overcoming, all obstacles they can. And sometimes it just doesn’t work out. But sometimes it does!

            The Internet. Isolation from face-to-face communication. We can know everything about a random person we follow on Twitter, and vice versa, but we don’t really communicate. We broadcast our lives through social media.

            Arianna started to have Stranger Potlucks, to interact with people face-to-face, other than her friends and family. She wanted to act as though they “have the world in common”. She wants to create in person relationships with people that they normally would not occur with. She wants to find out about people’s lives.

            When I first read about this idea, I was a little skeptical. Inviting strangers over to your house? Seems a bit dangerous. But once I read more, I really opened up to the idea. There are strangers all over social media that we interact with like it’s nothing, only because they can’t see us. We’re hiding behind our phones or our laptops. It’s safe that way. But why not try something new? Find out about other people’s lives. What their struggles, fears, motivations, and triumphs are. Who knows? You might learn something that could change your life.  

College... Is it enough?

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the average annual wage for males with a college degree is nearly doubled than the wages of those with just a high school dimploma. Think about it. Would you rather have the living standard with double the wages or not? For many people, this alone answers the question of "Is college good enough?" For other, more skeptical people, we still need more facts, more knowledge, and more benefits to truly answer this question. 

Like I said, many people think that just because you generally make more money being a college graduate that this makes college totally worth it. However, you have to think on the other side of the spectrum as well. In many people's eyes, college, and more specifically a Bachelor's degree, is not enough. In today's world, many fields of study can produce good jobs with a Bachelor's degree, but as a student you often have to pursue another degree, or even two more. The job field has become so competitive, that if you want to get the best type of job or the highest raise, you have to get a Master's or Doctorate degree. This takes more money and time, and to some people, it's a waste. Ramesh Ponnuru states in his article that he does not understand why you have to get a fancy college degree to get a good job in something like journalism. You don't learn how to be a journalist, in my opinion, you are born one. Writing is talent you have always had. You can't learn these things sitting in front of a professor telling you how to do them. 

Another point people make is that with the economy nowadays you can never find a job. Jordan Weissmann states in his article that 53.6% of people under the age of 25 that were college graduates were unemployed. Usually, they end up working in the merchandising or food industries. This problem goes along with the first problem because to get a compete and earn a good job, you might have to earn a higher degree. However, if you don't earn that higher degree, might end up working at a place that doesn't have anything to do with what you spent for years and paid a small fortune to study. Many people don't understand what the point is of getting a college degree if you can't get a job. 

A problem that branches off of the unemployment situation, is that, in most cases, when you leave college, you have a ton of debt. You go into college thinking that you'll be able to get a job quickly to pay it off, but what if that doesn't happen? What if you're in that 53.6% unemployed? Now you're swimming in debt, building a bigger hole right as you're entering the real world. I'm not sure if that's really the situation you want to put yourself in, and many people agree with this. With all the free knowledge there is out there, they don't think that the lifestyle where you're paying off your student loans 20 years later is the way to go.

College isn't the only route you can take to become successful in the real world. Take Mark Zuckerburg and Steve Jobs. One invented the most widely used social media network in the world. Another created the first personal computer, and changed the world of technology we have today. Like these two world famous men, take a not so world famous man who had somewhat of the same journey. At a young age, Nicholas Perez discovered his passion in life. He loved computers and everything they could do. When he got to high school, he didn't exactly fit in and mesh well with the system, so he dropped out. He doesn't regret a single second of it. He doesn't think that the old systems work well to prepare well rounded students. He is one of the people who doesn't believe college is worth it. Is he right??

http://www.collegegoalcolorado.org/

In my opinion, people are wrong. Although all of these negative points are somewhat valid and counterarguments, I feel college is an essential part of life these days.

In many fields, if you don't have a college degree, people automatically don't think you're as smart. Like the comic by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal says, "You are here to do whatever you want for 3-5 years in order to get a piece of paper that is essentially a claim check for 20% more lifetime earnings." Just the fact that you have a college degree in anything gives you a better chance in getting a job. It also gives you a better reputation and first impression. People who go to college and graduate are generally smarter, and the stereotype is used to your advantage.

Another reason it is important to go to college, is because you can learn more about a field of study you're interested in and get a well paying job. Some people may not think the skills are enough, but it's been done for a while now. Many people get good jobs with a Bachelor's degree. And even if you need to continue on to another degree, it's enough. A lot of people use the excuse of the economy and how nobody can get a job. But if you think about it like this, wouldn't it be easier trying to find a job with a college degree than without?? This partially makes the argument invalid, because it's the same for everyone. Going to college would only make it easier on yourself to try to find a job.

Like I said in the beginning, college graduates almost make double the annual earnings as non-college graduates do. Even though college students have a ton of debt leaving college, they can pay it back. I know not all of them have jobs right away, but it'll all work out in the end right?? Of course, I'm sure there rare cases where college debt has ruined a kid's life. But if you think about it, is it the majority?

The way the world thinks today is that a college degree has you better off. A lot of people ask " Is college enough?" but maybe, just maybe, we are asking the wrong question here. Maybe the question is, "Is college the right thing to help me in the future?" There isn't a world where everyone will agree, but I think a general consensus is that a college degree will greatly help you with many things in the long run. So would you rather go through life possibly struggling without a degree? Or make things easier on yourself?