[Peter Matteson]

Wow, where to begin. I'll try to keep this short and to the point.

The academic side of college is really learning how to learn. Classes are supposed to be structured in a way that forces you to take that next step and work on your own to get further along than you are going in. Look at each of us as a toolbox. College is the store where you go and get the tools that fill the box. High school and some early college is learning some lower level tools that get built upon. By the end you should be fashioning your own tools. I'm the first to admit I don't know everything about engineering, but I know how to learn what I need as the situations cmoe along.

More people are going to college now than in the past. The problem facing many of them is that they have been spoon feed and carried along the whole way. Some schools and majors continue this now through college defeating what I described above. The student populace at large has changed over time and colleges have adjusted for it.

College is what you put into it and by many is looked at as a measure of proof that you can work to a goal you don't need to reach but want to. That is why it is a litmus test used by many employers.