"I spend four years writing papers on Melvillle while my roomate is synthesizing proteins--what could our experiences possibly have in common that make us suitable for employment in middle management? There's no wide agreement on how to measure "liberal arts" or "critical thinking" or "decision making" or the other skills that college purports to teach."
"It's time to aggressively demystify the college degree and to say more loudly that four-year college is not for everyone: not in the name of limiting choice, but in the name of expanding it."
(On College Unbound): "His days are spent interning at a green architecture firm, his nights learning sign language , ballroom dancing, or discussing world issues with his seven roomates, and Saturday mornign taking a graduate level seminar. Monday and Friday mornings the eight college unbound students meet in an intensive seminar that crunches three general-ed requirements at a time into one, with lots of writing. "Most of the world sees intelligence as students memorizing facts that don't necessarily add practical application to their lives and regurgitating them later in life," Villagomez says. I believe intelligence is something much greater than that. It has alot more to do with adaptability."
"The way I see it, higher education, ten twenty years from now is going to look very different. It won't be the brick and mortar and the semseter and a course in this and a course in that. It's going to be more outcomes based and skill based, project based. You don't have to take these sixty courses or whatever it is to be a journalist. Someone will identify your gaps and then you address the gaps, in whatever way is possible. And that may mean taking an online course from New Zealand, being in a discussion forum with people in Canada, an internship in Mexico with Habitat for Humanity. You just need to get the knowledge and skills whatever way you can and then test out or present a portfolio. And when you add it up, a few years later, you actually are ready to be a good journalist."
"Forget about giving the guy a fish, or teaching him how to fish, either. Teach him how to teach himself, and he'll always be able to acquire the skills he needs to find food, skills you haven't even thought of yet for things you didn't know you could eat."
"The so called traditional path--graduating from high school at 18, going straight to college and living on campus, graduating at 22 and going straight into the workforce with a college-appropriate job--describes the experience of just 10% of people today."
"A complete personal learning plan ought to have four parts: finding a goal and the credentials or skills needed, formal study, experiential education, and building a personal learning network... In order to be succesfull in any educational program, the first subject you have to study is yourself. Treat it like any project: get a new notebook, a file folder, or if you have access to a computer, start a file labeled "About me" then start making a list or drawing a map for things that interest you or represent you."
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