Executive summary: Decisions about college may be assisted by students’ prior experiences in virtual reality and metaphor.
Conventional wisdom suggests decisions about college and what to study there will be among your biggest challenges before you’re 25-30 years old. Questions and essay prompts on college application forms set the scene: What context do you want for your higher education? What existing characteristics will you bring? What skills are you hoping to develop? How will you interact with others? What roles and teams will you embrace? How much curriculum freedom do you want? What is your preference for pacing? Will you specialize early or do you want optional courses on the side? These are tough real-world life choices.
But if you got past the title of this blog post, chances are you’ve made similar choices before. Today’s college applicants bring unprecedented levels of experience to life’s questions, not necessarily through exposure to the “real world”, but through the new dimension of virtual realities. Whatever Gen Z will choose to call themselves, their accession to higher education is now in full swing, and I for one look forward to the day when this wonderful cohort will rule the planet. They are a poetic generation, forged in full awareness of alternative realities: they will be the bards and blacksmiths, jailers and jesters, monks and mages, farmers and apothecaries of the future. Under their guardian shields, the world of 2030 and beyond will be in safe and wise hands.
unless you are at home
in the metaphor, … you are not safe anywhere
Robert Frost, Education by Poetry, 1930
Back in 1930, the poet Robert Frost wrote a remarkable short essay, timeless but by no means easy, entitled Education by Poetry. At one point he recalls Odysseus laboring over the ocean, until an island appears on the horizon “like an inverted shield”. The idea of an Odyssey and the metaphor of arrival at a place offering protection, sustenance, reinvigoration and resupply is a universal image. Gen Z might call it a meme. Whatever else he might have thought of Gen Z, Frost would probably agree that today’s college applicants understand the metaphors of the Odyssey and of the shield just as keenly as did the heroes of old.
Amazingly, Frost himself never acquired an ordinary university degree, though he scored a record number of academic honors later in life. Anyone looking for a soaring survey of what education is (or could be), with frank comment and deep insight into the mental set we ought to adopt as learners, might embark on Education by Poetry for inspiration.
So, how does all this help you make decisions about your higher education? Well, if you’re thinking that comparing the relative merits of (say) Cal Poly and UCLA is an outfacing decision, I want to point out that it’s really no more complicated than choosing between (say) Assassins Creed Odyssey and Skyrim. (For the uninitiated, these are two leading examples of computer-based role playing games – RPGs – and quite possibly represent the highest skill factor exhibited by many of today’s college applicants.) If I ask you “AC or SR”, you’ll probably have strong opinions, plenty of thoughts on pros and cons, and basically a lot to say. Easy conversation!
AC is Ivy League. You can choose your context, but once you’re committed to Origins or Odyssey or (dare I say it) Valhalla, transferring out is going to be tough. You’re somewhat fixed as to storyline: you’ll likely be served up with tried and trusted pathways through well-established, respected curricula. There are fewer optional paths, fewer side quests if you like, and these detours tend to bring you back fairly quickly and safely to the main storyline. The technical delivery will be superb, the map enormous, the levelling fairly dependable, and the pacing fast! You’ll meet lifelong comrades in your trireme or nordic barrow, and after you level up to graduate you’ll probably all look back on somewhat similar but very happy and productive experiences.
What context do you want…
what roles will you embrace?
SR is Big School. The options are incredible, and it’s largely up to you to define yourself and your path to success. Apart from the obvious imperative to play by the rules of the game, there is almost no need for conformity. You decide on your role, you can almost infinitely “mod” your character, your equipment, your goals and your geography. Taken individually, your courses will be highly competent, offering a lot of detail. You’ll be somewhat able to determine your pace, but you’ll walk every step of the way and you’ll be responsible for making coherent sense of the whole experience. And beware! The side quests are insane, and may hijack you altogether. The cheat codes are plentiful. There are more glitches. You’re more likely to ragequit!
This doesn’t mean AC is without complex distractions. For example, the “Legend No More” side quest in Odyssey lets you confront your nemesis, Roxana. Now, unless you previously romanced Roxana in the “Foot Race” side quest, at this point you’ll probably want to kill her and loot her body to get her famous shield (to sell it for 3000 drachmas or to drop it at the feet of the goddess Athena, whichever you prefer.) In the RPG paradigm, whatever our path, we carve out our own success, take our own risks, choose our own friends, find our own shields, make our own decisions and manifest our own destinies. The virtual generation is great at all this. They are going to find academic decisions relatively easy.
I worried while writing this article that readers may find it too metaphorical. Perhaps some will misunderstand or even disagree with the thesis that virtual experience can supply real-world wisdom. But others (you know who you are!) will get the connection and will (I trust) be able to use it to make better choices in their real-life quests for higher education.
Regarding how far you can take this, Frost waxes Delphic. Let’s give him the last word:
All metaphor breaks down somewhere. That is the beauty of it. It is touch and go with the metaphor, and until you have lived with it for long enough you don’t know where it is going. You don’t know how much you can get out of it and when it will cease to yield. It is a very living thing. It is as life itself.
The bottom line: Skills earned in all contexts, including in virtual realities and role playing games, may be directly useful in making your decisions for higher education. Don’t shy away from metaphor – it may be your strength and shield in your upcoming academic challenges.