Many years ago - make that many decades ago - I went to an introductory Scientology session with my late (and hysterically funny) friend Mary Beth. We were college girls with nothing to do on a Friday night and thought that checking out Scientology, and Dianetics (the ideas underlying L. Ron Hubbard's "religion") might be good for a few laughs.
Indeed it was.
At that time (late 1960's), in that place (Boston), tickets to free Scientology introductory sessions were handed out on on the streets, so we grabbed a couple and went for it. The sessions were held in a non-descript building on Boylston Street, up one flight of stairs, in a non-descript room furnished with a bunch of folding chairs and a table/podium set up in the front.
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the guy running the show - the evangelist? the salesman? - was named John. I can picture him as vividly as if I'd seen him yesterday. He was blandly good looking, with thick, jet-black hair, and wearing a grey suit.
John explained the concepts underlying Scientology, which was that you needed to get "clear" of whatever was holding you back and advance to become an Operating Thetan, which had multiple levels. None of this was free, of course. If memory serves, it cost a few thousand bucks to get on the OT ladder.
To demonstrate how getting clear worked, John asked for a volunteer to test out the Scientology e-meter, a little contraption that "audited" someone, measuring how they reacted to the mention of certain words. The device looked like a couple of Donald Duck Juice cans attached a black box that resembled a car battery, only smaller. The person being "audited" gripped the handles (i.e., the Donald Duck Juice cans) and the dial registered the impact of those certain words on the auditee. In the case of the volunteer, the word "mother" caused the needle to jump wildly. A miracle!
With "mother" identified as the root cause of the volunteer's personal and professional failures, the volunteer was encouraged to sign up to get "clear" of "mother." He politely declined.
The audience was, not surprisingly, full of skeptics, and John told us that, because he was a Scientologist, he was able to detect "hostility" in the crowd. Some of that hostility, of course, emanated from me and Mary Beth. We were nearly falling off of out folding chairs laughing. And we weren't the only ones. I don't think it took any Scientology to accurately read the room.John then went on to brag that, "if I'd of had Scientology, I coulda went through college in three months."
It's been many a moon since I've thought about my Scientological experience, but it came to mind when I read a recent Boston Globe article on how some online learners are racing through college and achieving their degrees in a matter of months, rather than the traditional four-year snail's pace.
For those trying to grab a credential as quickly as they can and save a lot of money while they're at it, a near insta-degree is a very good thing.
But some question whether you can learn as much in three months as you do over the course of four years.
Personally, I'm sure that even without Scientology, I coulda went through college in fewer than four years. Obviously, if I had time to fart around taking in a Scientology session, I could have been taking a few more credits. But back then, there was less of an urgency to finish up, less need for speed. College was less expensive, and we all accepted the wisdom of taking your four-year time to get your bachelor's degree. (And, of couse, for young men, college meant a deferment from the draft and a visit to the rice paddies of Vietnam. Ain't no one wanted to accelerate that process.)
But the times, they are a-different. College costs more. A lot more. There's more pressure on to study something that will produce an obvious and immediate payback, career-wise. A lot more. There's more pressure to avoid lolling around reading great books, thinking great thoughts, bullshitting the night away.
Supporters of the [breakneck degree] approach tout it as an affordable, convenient way for people to earn credentials they need for their careers. Others, including some online students and academic officials, expressed concern about what the super-accelerated students are missing, and whether a quick path devalues degrees. (Source: Boston Globe)
I get the need for speed, the demand for affordability. But I'm with those who think that the "super-accelerated students" are missing out on something. Mostly what they're missing out on is going deep on a topic, doing a lot of reading, thinking about what your paper is going to be about, researching that paper - and going down paths that perhaps don't yield much, yet are still learning experiences. There's talking to your professors. There's hanging with the other students in your class. There's working on a project - solo or with others. For the STEM courses, there's also lab time, computer time.
Things take time. Learning builds on learning.
I'm sure there are plenty of courses of study that don't require all that much study, all that much time. Maybe they cover checklist items that, once checked, lead to a credential. Sort of like the quickie online security courses a client of mine required everyone to take in order to keep using their internal systems.
I'm all for older learners getting some credit for whatever OTJ experiencal learning they've acquired. If you can demonstrate competency - by, say, taking the math test - without having to show up for sections, go for it. Great if these online degree schools accept all legit credits from other colleges, even if it's three years worth, and still confer a degree. And I'm all for being able to earn your degree while juggling work and family responsibilities. I'm all for affordability. But I'm also for Marjorie Hass has to say:
“We want diplomas that mean something,” said Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents more than 600 liberal arts colleges and universities. “I would prefer to have some of these degrees called something other than a bachelor’s.”
Could I have went through college more quickly than I did? Sure. There is no doubt whatsoever that I wasted plenty o' time. But am I glad I had the time to read, think, learn, explore, run into dead ends, munge around with my ideas? Absoltutely!
I'm all for education for all. So YES to online education. Just let's not pretend that truncating the time it takes to earn a college degree is always going to translate into the full equivalent of a four-year, slow-paced degree. (Or a two-year, slow-paced degree.)
Respectfully, Maureen Rogers BA, MS
Image Source: Court Street Press
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