Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> At 06:10 PM 7/22/2008, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
> >However we cut the numbers, I hope we can agree that
> >many, many students attend college with vocational goals foremost in
> >their minds.
>
> I'm not so sure. I think for most it's a way to do something that's
> more appealing than working toward a vocational goal. For many
> others it's a way to extend adolescence as far as possible.
A neurological and developmental point that is not irrelevant here.
The part of the brain which is essential in relating present to thinking in terms of the future is not wholly develooped until the late 'teens or early twenties. Many of them are nominally pursung a vocational goal because they have been told that is the proper thing to do.
Back in the '70s, however, I once had a section of freshman comp seriously enraged -- at least for 50 minutes -- by suggesting that financial success was not a certainty. Uses of the term "working class" vary on this list, but in my terms ISU was a working-class school.
Carrol