Why does a rewilding person choose to go to university?
I kind of came about rewilding while attending University (still attending), and well… I almost dropped out last year, but I don’t know… I guess when I start something I finish it, and I get a bit of financial aid so it doesn’t cost all that much… hopefully I can graduate with ~15k in debt, I know that’s still a lot but considering school costs 50k…
So what do I want to do now? I guess graduate, get a job to pay off debt, maybe save a bit of money/buy some land or something… then “retire”, or rather, quit the rat race. Free myself up to do what feels beneficial and meaningful to me (and others).
Now if I were to go to university, I’d probably go for some type of environmental sciences, but I think the cynic in me would still scream about that…
I’m in the same boat. As much as I was working my way towards rewilding for years before starting college, I’ve only consciously pursued it recently. I’m in my fifth year of school, and although I wish I had quit school years ago, I’m so close now that I might as well finish it up. Hel, I just got my cap and gown on Wednesday. I’m grateful, at least, that I’ve learned a lot of interesting stuff, since I’m graduating with an Anthropology degree and took plenty of courses about primitive peoples.
Much the same reason that anyone else goes to university–to learn new things, to put oneself in an advantageous position economically, to take the time to study something, etc.
In university, I learned anthropology, and studied wild cultures, which has helped me rewild a great deal. I think I might even go back to university, and find some Master’s program that would allow me to study horticulture, permaculture and/or forestry.
I’m going to school to learn to play and teach jazz music. It’s pretty much insurance for if I never rewild to my intended point. If I end up with a car, a mortgage, food only from the supermarket, an abstraction from community and all other “gifts” of civilization, at least I’ll be doing what I love for a living, working with art (an inherently non-civilized pastime).
Do you think that when you play jazz, you don’t rewild?
I graduate university in about 6-7 weeks. I’ve only gotten into rewilding in the past few months, so I have no reason to drop out at this point (I’ve actually completed my studies, I spend my days now reading, going on walks, and doing fun things). If I was counseling a younger person about college, though, I would encourage them to not go. I’ve loved college and all the opportunities and friends I’ve made here, but I’ve also pressed against the grain here. I also am fortunate to not have any debt coming out of college, but I have friends who will be forced into the wage economy in order to pay off debts. That sucks!
I suppose I’d counsel against going to college for younger folks for a number of reasons. For one, most of my learnings in college have come from conversations and readings outside the classroom, and nothing I’ve learned I couldn’t learn without paying exorbitant amounts of money to hear persons with PhD’s recommend books and lecture. Also, the fun I have in college comes from living and playing with folks my own age away from my parents, not the classes. Third, I’ve learned no hand skills from the school… building: nope. gardening: nope (we have a community garden, but it’s student-run). hunting: nope. gathering: nope. dancing: nope.
If I had thousands of dollars saved up for college and was thinking about re-wilding right now, I’d probably try for an immersion program like TrackersNW offers, go WWOOF for a while, or move to a university town and work part-time, meet folks, read books (usually universities offer community members opportunities to get library cards for little money – $25 or something), and do other things (moving to a university town would get you all the benefits of college – community of young folks, a big library, etc. without all the costs).
~wildeyes
Interesting advice wildeyes. My issue is that I think there are somethings, even academic things, that are so much better learned by actually talking to people rather than reading books. That’s just the way I learn though.
I am kind of worried about the finances of college, but I want to do a Co-op, and I think that might actually mean, with scholarships, that I might not come out with lots of debt, but then again, I’m an optimist :).
I am also really interested in things like wwoof and intensive internships, and I was thinking I might take a year off first to do some of those things.
About going to university, I really want to be able to learn new things, things that I may not investigate or learn about otherwise, but there is another, more important reason for me to go to university. I can learn most of what I want to learn at university in other, funner, easier ways - university has some innate appeal to me as a centre of learning, but I could get that through a university town, as you say wildeyes. No, the real reason I want to go to university is not even for sane economic reasons (or insane, depending on your point of view).
The reason I want to go to university is so that I will be taken seriously by wider society. I still believe that there is some good to working within the system, as long as we sort of create a bubble so that we are actually bringing rewilding into the heart of civilization. Whether I will do that as a teacher or a city planner, I don’t know, but I feel that I can have the greatest impact on people by having a university degree. Does that make sense?
While I think most people who’ve gone through university would agree with you that most learning takes place outside of class, I think it also bears mentioning that those encounters would not have happened without the context of those classes. The tuition pays less for the class itself than the general milieu you get to participate in.
I’ve dropped out of highschool when 16 and never looked back. I’ve done all my learning after that by seeking out whatever interested me at the moment and i dare say that served me well.
for an interesting perspective http://reactor-core.org/deschooling
Absolutely. I just think I could get into the community without paying tuition and taking classes… just by living in a place.
Also, I’ll add that for me college has been four years of unlearning a lot of the lessons I grew up with, say, “rewilding” without the label. I’ve only recently arrived at understanding “rewilding” as something I have been and want to continue doing. If a person is already at this point before college, I think they may not be served very well by university.
While I think most people who've gone through university would agree with you that most learning takes place outside of class, I think it also bears mentioning that those encounters would not have happened without the context of those classes. The tuition pays less for the class itself than the general milieu you get to participate in.
Yea, one of the best things I learned from my advisor was after his archaeology class one day. I stuck around and talked with him for an hour about how the construction of highways was really a sign of an unstable society, since they needed ways to import goods they weren’t making themselves. If you take this beyond simple roadways and look also at shipping routes over sea and air, it suggest something about our society that most of us rewilders aren’t surprised about at all.
I feel most of what my teachers lecture on I can get from the book, though with programming… I learn mostly from my fellow classmates, the theory of it all I can get from the book.
I feel way to locked in with university and school in general, I always want to learn well… what I want to learn at the moment, and I so while going to school I also try to learn the stuff I actually want to in my free time, but with school and work and such… well… it takes me awhile to even read a book now. And then I also want to get outside and do such but… hardly any time either…
Oh well, I try to make the best of it that I can for now, no use getting all worked up about it again.
I’ve never gone to a “real” university, just community college. My experience is that most people care more about grades than learning. They just want to get the piece of paper so they can make more money at their jobs.
The reason I want to go to university is so that I will be taken seriously by wider society.
I’ve found that if you read a lot of books and talk like an educated person, people just assume that you have a university degree.
It’s a mixed bag for me. In college I unlearned a lot from high school, but a lot of things that I “learned” in college I’m finding I have to unlearn as I rewild. And in college, people generally weren’t all that interested in participating with nature, even the environmentalists (and there were a lot of those in my college). In high school there were people all around me who liked to fish and hunt and have that kind of direct experience, even though they weren’t all that interested in the environmental movement.
Starfish, I have a different experience of higher education. There were three main types of students at my college: those who didn’t care about learning, those who cared about grades AND learning, and those who cared about learning, grades be damned. Percentage-wise, I’d say it ran about 10%-65%-25% respectively.
I understand that it’s hard to believe that 90% of my college classmates cared about learning, and the only explanation I can offer is that this particular college is an exceptionally rare specimen. It had very high academic standards, and it was small, with lots of interpersonal academic exchanges between professors and students (there was no graduate program; it was a “teaching college”). In fact there was an exact total of ONE prof who asked the students to call him “Professor So-and-so” and not by his first name, and (for that and many, many other reasons) it was unanimously agreed that he was a pompous jerk.
Some of my college profs I still consider good friends. When I was experiencing emotional/psychological chaos my senior year of college (four years ago), I even went to one of them to get things off my chest. She listened with care and helped me decide to find short-term counseling, and she took it upon herself to check in with me and ask me how I was doing. A great teacher, friend, and mentor in my life.
So speaking from my experiences, I happen to agree with Jason that higher education can provide a great milieu for learning how to think for yourself and value your capacity to think. As rewilders I think we can all appreciate the significance of context. 
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
-Robert Frost
Starfish, I agree, but sounding smart usually isn’t enough to persuade parents to allow you to educate their children or to allow you to be a city planner.
Oh, so I read more of this thread, and I wanted to respond to Billy’s original question.
Well, personally I discovered leaving civilization as a goal in and of itself after I finished college.
Some of the people here who are currently students might have begun school before deciding that they want to rewild.
Everybody has to choose how they will rewild, which includes how they will move forward from their present situation: how they will participate in the civilized world while they are working on rewilding, whether it’s choosing not to go to school and going straight into the workforce or going to school to do something more specialized in the workforce.
I can see myself going back to school and getting a degree in psychology, becoming a therapist, and eventually leaving that role as I step further into rewilding (however, it would certainly make the rewilding process longer). Both of those goals would be worthwhile to me. I mean, if I have to engage with civ for the time being, I should make it work for me as best I can, right? And I imagine if I live a very frugal lifestyle, I can get those loans paid off faster. Once the loans are paid off, I can start taking fewer clients (or patients, depending on how you look at it) and spend MORE of my time rewilding. I can eventually phase the therapy work out altogether.
That’s all assuming that I have the time. Civ could crash quickly. But then again, a lot of things could happen. I could cross the street this afternoon and get hit by a car.
Sigh, I haven’t really worked out my long-term goals yet, and all I know so far is that leaving civ for rewilding is the ultimate goal.
Heyvic.,
I know what you mean, while at the same time lately I’ve thought a lot about going for a doctorate.
Actually, though it requires a higher degree of education, jazz is actually a very free and communal form of music. So yeah, jazz music is much less hierarchical and restrictive than say, Bach. It’s a hell of a lot easier to get a group of your friends to pick a standard tune and just jam for 20 minutes than it is to organize a chamber quartet. Also, through soloing, it’s a very individually expressive medium.
So is it rewilding? Sort of. But specially hammered brass and wooden reeds from the Andes mountains (yes, sax players actually have those) are not long for this world. So I have to figure out new ways of getting that spirit into a more rewilded context.
Yes, I guess I have more the spirit of jazz in mind than the specific instruments one usually plays. I see jazz as an excellent way to rewild–it already moves Western music in concert with wild African music, so it makes an excellent bridge.