Students
University degree, it is the only way to ensure your future?
What is a Vietnamese dream? Vietnamese upward mobility, most of us believe, is to have a university education, obtain a good job and settle down. Sadly, without a ticket to university, such a desired life proves far from reachable. Hence, it makes sense that children’s matriculation is supposed to live up to a truly Vietnamese dream of their parents.
The question is then how to fulfill this dream? No sooner do kids finish compulsory school lessons and extra classes in preparation for the once-in-a-lifetime entrance exam than they drag themselves home, tired and lifeless. The idea of flunking it haunts their dream every night. Do they like this exam or university education? Not a bit, I would say, but they are taught to love it since the whole society is born to love it, and because the society said so. Every vein of success is intertwined with it. We these kids are cloned into thinking that no success befalls a person bereft of university education. We are hard-wired to believe that no company welcomes a high school or university drop out. Our inner voice seems too weak to resist this (embedded echoing notion. Here we go again
Does anybody dare to think big, veering away from the well-trodden road to success? The world is full of examples of the most successful university dropouts. Smoldering passion on his adventurous journey with Microsoft did mark the end of Bill Gate’s college education at Harvard, the top world’s university. What’s about us? Few of us plug enough nerves to deviate from the prosaic, yet all-favored way to success where, apparently, we are eulogized by colleagues for our degrees, treasured by certificate-loving bosses, praised by parents for our effort to make their dream come true. The door to something genuinely original stays shut; our mediocre desire materializes, as such. We enjoy this feeling, as do others. We may even worship it. The price, however, does not come cheap:
What is a Vietnamese dream? Vietnamese upward mobility, most of us believe, is to have a university education, obtain a good job and settle down. Sadly, without a ticket to university, such a desired life proves far from reachable. Hence, it makes sense that children’s matriculation is supposed to live up to a truly Vietnamese dream of their parents.
The question is then how to fulfill this dream? No sooner do kids finish compulsory school lessons and extra classes in preparation for the once-in-a-lifetime entrance exam than they drag themselves home, tired and lifeless. The idea of flunking it haunts their dream every night. Do they like this exam or university education? Not a bit, I would say, but they are taught to love it since the whole society is born to love it, and because the society said so. Every vein of success is intertwined with it. We these kids are cloned into thinking that no success befalls a person bereft of university education. We are hard-wired to believe that no company welcomes a high school or university drop out. Our inner voice seems too weak to resist this (embedded echoing notion. Here we go again
Does anybody dare to think big, veering away from the well-trodden road to success? The world is full of examples of the most successful university dropouts. Smoldering passion on his adventurous journey with Microsoft did mark the end of Bill Gate’s college education at Harvard, the top world’s university. What’s about us? Few of us plug enough nerves to deviate from the prosaic, yet all-favored way to success where, apparently, we are eulogized by colleagues for our degrees, treasured by certificate-loving bosses, praised by parents for our effort to make their dream come true. The door to something genuinely original stays shut; our mediocre desire materializes, as such. We enjoy this feeling, as do others. We may even worship it. The price, however, does not come cheap: