This week, both in Juarez and throughout the republic, the classrooms and halls of the university have once again felt the presence of students. Many of them are young people who have just begun their academic training in a specific discipline, others who will continue to add theoretical and methodological elements in their process of preparation for professional life, and of course those who are close to graduating seeking to finish their thesis (or dissertation) work that will allow them to endorse the completion of their studies. Of course, it is not only the students who are returning, but the entire university community made up of teachers, administrative staff and, of course, those in charge of the fundamental work of adequately maintaining the university infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to pursue higher education is not presented to everyone equally. While acknowledging the efforts made to expand university enrollment and accommodate as many students as possible, the truth is that not everything depends on institutional efforts for inclusion, but on other aspects of reality that can become obstacles to the possible undertaking of a university career. Many young people who manage to finish high school are forced to dismiss the university option in the face of a family economic reality that inexorably encourages them to enter the labor market. Of course, there are cases, increasingly common in our Juárez society, in which the same person seeks to combine their studies with the beginning of their working life, taking on a major challenge in the search for optimal results in both areas. Finally, it is the socioeconomic circumstance that stands as a determining factor in the way in which higher education is approached, or whether these are a real option for people or not.
It is clear that there is an increasing favourable opinion regarding the “advantages” of starting a working life and studying at university at the same time, opinions that are generally based on the presumed acquisition of more experience in the person as well as the possibility of corroborating or checking what has been learned in the classroom within specific work spaces. This may possibly be true, as long as the student manages to insert himself or herself into a coherent or related work space with his or her higher level studies, otherwise, it will only be a situation in which studying and working represent two obligations that are not part of a specific academic and professional project, but of surviving on the one hand, and seeking to prepare on the other, with the expectation that said preparation can contribute to a better job opportunity in the future.
However, without wanting to enter into a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of working and studying today, the truth is that the economic issue, and particularly the labour issue, has become – or perhaps has always been – the key factor that determines the decision that young students make regarding their academic and professional future. Whether it is to be able to choose or not to undertake a career within a higher education institution, as well as even the academic discipline that they intend to study. Given this situation, the issue of vocation has ceased to have much meaning today, since the university route of higher education is thought of more as an opportunity to access a better position within the labour market, and the idea of attending university as the best and perhaps only opportunity for intellectual and creative development, where new theoretical, conceptual and methodological knowledge can be created and thus contribute to the formation of possible proposals for solutions to the various problems that our local and national community faces in the different dimensions of social life, has ended up being tarnished in the student imagination – and often also in the teaching imagination.
The predominance of the market has also redefined the objective of higher education in cities and countries like ours. And this is not adverse, because ultimately every university student has to think about his or her economic future and prepare himself or herself as best as possible so that this can take place in the best material conditions of existence. But it is also true that university institutions not only have the purpose of preparing their students so that they can access a better quality of life, but also and fundamentally, the purpose of establishing themselves as the main pole of scientific and technological development in their societies, and therefore becoming pillars for their economic growth and development. For this, it is essential that students who enter university, as well as those who already have a career within it, as well as those who are about to graduate, can recognize that the fact of being able to have the opportunity to have a higher level academic education gives them a social responsibility oriented to the development of their own communities and their society in general. Studying at university is, among other things, preparing oneself scientifically to put oneself at the service of humanity. Therefore, for university students and teachers of all disciplines, following Publius Terentius, the Roman playwright: “nothing human is alien to us.” This is the incomparable beauty of university studies.
#beauty #university #studies
