The University

In a world where social standards define our being, it is difficult to formulate and live with our own ideas. From an early age, one is placed in an institution which is designed to educate and mold the young mind. Within these institutions, "the pupil is schooled to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence and fluency with the ability to say something new" (lecture notes). The social world has distorted the meaning of education, and the means by which it is attained. Rather than teach us to live with ideas, the education system has a become a component of society designed to make us Ð''alike' and merely capable of living in the world as it is confined and restricted by social standards. University, in this society, is an educational institution for higher learning. It is regarded as crucial in determining the options one may pursue in the future. However, the university is oppressive. It is oppressive in the sense that it is a space which leads one to believe that they are free, when in fact they are only free within a space set by conditions. As a result, the university leads to alienation in three ways; alienation between the teacher and the student, alienation of sciences from one another, and alienation between students and society. This paper will further discuss alienation as a result of the conditions placed on the university.

"Bureaucratized teaching and learning systems dominate the scene, but nevertheless it is everyone's task to find his free space. The task of our human life in general is to find free spaces and learn to move therein" (Gadamer, p.59). In university, in general, one does not form a relationship with the professor. The routine is ratherÐ'...routine. The professor enters the lecture hall, lectures and leaves. There is no room for opinion, no space for thought and movement. One does not normally form a bond with the instructor, and there are no mentoring relationships because the groups are large. The instructor is understood as the holder of knowledge. This knowledge is unquestioned. The common student goes to class and absorbs the information, and yet remains uneducated. "Ð'...the word educationÐ'...means living with ideas" (Gadamer, p.48). When one is taught to absorb ideas from a superior source, it is not education, it is simply absorption, leaving the mind dead and unexamined. As stated by Socrates, "the unexamined life is not worth living" (http://www.fsm-a.org). Mario Savio, a prominent student spokesperson who began a movement in California concerning the university regulations restricting the students' political activities, describes the administration as, "Ð'...the greatest problem of our nation-depersonalized, unresponsive bureaucracy" (Savio, p.1).

The university creates boundaries around sciences. The university is further divided into sectors concentrating on education in a specific manner, and focusing on specific ideologies relating to the particular discipline. The mind is once again isolated by boundaries and conditions. This alienation suppresses one's creativity. The student is taught to think in a way adhering to the conditions placed on the discipline being studied. Students confine to the norms of the science studied, and are taught to disregard their own thought, especially those which appear absurd and challenge the norms and standards.

"Ð'...to become part of society, to become lawyers, ministers, business men, people in government, they [students] very often have to compromise those principles what were most dear to them. They must suppress the most creative impulses that they have; this is a prior condition for being part of the system. The university is well structured, well tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn offÐ'..." (Savio, p.3).

The idea that students are confined within sciences allows us to further realize division within the university. Each division molds the student to be part of the system and to Ð''fix' that which may not adhere to what the program demands.

"One conception of the universityÐ'...is that it be in the world but not of the world" (Savio, p.2). What the student learns in university does not prepare them for the real world; rather, it limits their education by predetermining what must be taught in order to conform to the world within the university. University should be a place where as students, we come