a brief synopsis of a public education experience

as completed in a post-graduate survey for the University of Minnesota:

19. What advice would you share with current students to assist them in their career preparation? Since when has a school of higher learning been strictly for job placement? This general attitude toward what should be a path of self-enlightenment has been relegated to the service of a technical school, except with a 5 to 6 year graduation average and $60,000 price tag. Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University of Virginia, would most definitely consider this approach to higher learning a complete failure of the institution's responsibility: "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."  - Thomas Jefferson. From Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello, p. 417-418.

20. What feedback do you have for your program or department of study? I partly chose and was somewhat forced into the Individualized Studies program through a series of completely inadequate advisement from the School of Architecture and the inter-department college setup that makes up the University. In general, the mission statement of the University - that of wanting a diversely educated student body - is in direct conflict with the University's inherent lack of interdepartmental communications. For instance, I was admitted into the Institute of Technology and had a very difficult time being considerately advised by what was then the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture - then in the process of becoming the College of Design - as well as with the College of Liberal Arts to make even a semblance of an efficient change of college. That said, the Individualized Degree program was the most satisfactory experience I have had with the University. Here, there is an obvious concern for each individual student's needs as well as an atmosphere of emphasizing the importance of obtaining the student's own educational goals rather than simply following a course requirement list. I wouldn't hesitate to say that this department represents what a university ought to encourage - a passion for one's own academic pursuits rather than a blind conformity to the established and remediated expectations of an entire university system guised solely for "career preparation".