Why Take Academic Classes If You Aren’t Planning an Academic Future?

 Educate Yourself

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

 If you listen to university and collegiate advertising, getting a college degree is the golden ticket to life! Finish that degree and you’ll have a bright and carefree future, right? This might be the case for some, no doubt. This is often untrue as well. For some, college will be a very expensive experiment. Results will vary. Some move towards the end of high school years without any interest in following the crowd into college. Should this change how you approach your high school years?
Being undecided about college (or even being certain it isn’t for you) does not mean you should skip tackling academic subjects in high school. “Academic” classes are not just for students planning an academic career. Just like you shouldn’t spend your life stretched out on a couch because you never plan to hike Mt. Everest, never miss out on challenging yourself and your brain to master new things. The challenge of navigating life’s demands will be improved when you have trained yourself to learn, do, and know a wide variety of things.   

The Highest Grade isn’t the Greatest Good

The Lukeion Project has been offering challenging courses for 20 years. While most of our courses were on par academically 20 years ago, they are now considered relatively challenging. Today’s students haven’t changed. What is expected of them has. Consequently, some ostensibly bright students are choosing an easy path to ensure a perfect GPA and transcript. Horror stories abound about students who graduate from high school (even with honors) but have never read a book or written an essay. After some navigate 12 years of this type of “education,” they are — unsurprisingly — disinterested in playing the academic game any longer than necessary.  
Having a crack at academically challenging classes can be wonderfully fulfilling, even if you must work extra hard to enjoy rewards. Success is often won with less than perfect scores but more than adequate assurance that you have what it takes to complete tough mental missions. “What if” it doesn’t go that well for you? That’s the risk with anything, no matter your path. It is as important to learn how to navigate failures as it is to know you can overcome and conquer challenges. The highest grade is NOT the greatest good.

Tackling Academic Challenges Benefits Everyone

There are plenty of subjects that you’ll be asked to do that will leave you wondering if you’ll ever “need” to use that knowledge again. Does the average person need calculus every day? Does one need 14th century French history? What about playing a toy xylophone when you were 5 or finishing an Egyptology lesson in fifth grade?  
Education is only as good as the width and breadth of your experiences. If we only do things we think we’ll eventually need, we will limit ourselves to the smallest and narrowest possible existence since we have no clue what awaits. Challenges, victories, failures, and recoveries shape who we will eventually be and how we’ll use this life. Taking on tough subjects offers benefits to absolutely everyone. You don’t need to become a professor of archaeology or an expert in ancient languages to learn about them and love them. They will continue to enrich your life endlessly.

A Rich Education Is Something You Create for Yourself

Home educated students already know this fact well. Skipping the often random and perplexing requirements set by program dictocrats is the biggest advantage to pulling the plug on conventional education. Getting a good education is nearly impossible unless you, and hopefully also your family, know how to enrich your own education.
I had only two bright spots in my otherwise dull high school education: botany and Latin. Those two subjects have shaped my preferences, career, and hobby ever since. Finding something to light your mental fire and then going out of your way to pursue it will make all the difference, regardless of how dreary your educational prospects might seem now or in the future.  

Many Rewarding Fields are Looking for Great Minds not Great Diplomas  

If life, the universe, and everything stays exactly as it is right now, there are many fantastic life paths that require zero college degrees. I propose, dear reader, that most things about the modern world are about to change radically due to innovations in quantum computing and in AI applications. My prediction is that society will soon be divided into two groups. The old model separated the educated and the uneducated in terms of social mobility and earning potential. Very soon, those that can think with swift clarity, and those that cannot, will be marked for distinct career paths.
Making top grades in easy classes then finishing a fast degree with community college dual credits used to be a simple and affordable route to a diploma. Your little diploma could open a variety of doors in your choice of 40-hour work week fields. Unfortunately, those are the jobs that may soon be completed by AI in a fraction of the time and money a human needs. Those who can teach themselves the new rules of the changing AI landscape will do very well. Four-year degrees will still be necessary but only for very specific fields. Train your brain to learn and memorize, train yourself to communicate precisely in both speech and in writing, train your tastes to crave a broad scope of knowledge and topics. There has been no better time for taking academic classes even if you think you will not want to pursue an academic career.