I'm a University student in my final year of studies and I've begun thinking what have I really learned in my 4 years of study. It's difficult to quantify what I learned because I can't just say oh now I can count from 1-100 instead of only being able to count from 1-10. Now I have to sit and think deeply about the many courses I took, the discussions I had, the travels I went on, or the papers I wrote. Perhaps I'm putting too much thought into this, but it struck me as unusual that I was unable to list what I've learned.
Being an Economics major, I can have a discussion at length about the "invisible hand" and even while at church I notice things like "the wealth of nations" in a biblical passage (Is 60:5). However, I feel I could have easily picked up an econ text and learned quite a bit of that myself. I can discuss the pros and cons of a heavy handed government but looking at examples of lets say Sweden and the US or France and Canada my biases would sway any discussion on the "Pro" side. I'm fully behind social democracies and really don't even understand why people in North America are so afraid of them. Government intervention in things like education, health care, and child care are essential in my opinion. France, with arguable the best child care system in the world, is only the best because the government places immense importance on the family structure.
Okay, maybe I can't quantify everything, but if I'm able to express my ideas in a way that is understandable...I may have learned something after all. Possibly, my questions are a result of the nerves and the anxiety that comes along with graduation preparations . Will I attend grad school after undergrad, do I have what it takes to be accepted to a reputable grad school, will I excel if I get into grad school, or will I get lost in the system of unemployment? The questioning and worrying is never ending, but hopefully it keeps me alert. It's one thing to question but work toward the answers, and it's another to question in vain. If university has taught me one thing, it's question and seek the truth even if it leads to more questions or contradictions. It's almost the essence of the Socratic method which later led to the dialectic. An idea that what we believe to be true can often be contradicted through questioning and a change of position.
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing - Socrates
