I still think college experience is unique. At this age, in this well-developed country, and being the fortunate people that we are, sources of knowledge are readily available at our finger tips and within the reach of our grasps (or our commuting distance). But how many people, if they don't feel intellectually stimulated, will go to local library and spend hours exploring arcane subjects (starting from introductory books that everyone can read!) after work? Yes, there will be a few, but the majority of them have their other priorities pile on top of out-of-work intellectual pursuit.
Compared with this scenario, for most of us, being a student in college is the most carefree time where you are not burdened with bills to pay, food to cook, family to take care of, utility bills to pay and a life to earn, not to mention the duty or privilege of a student is to learn.
This seems to be missing the drift of my argument. Nowhere am I claiming that your college years aren't a unique opportunity to learn. The question is of how you're going to use that opportunity.
Are you going to use it to learn lots of things that come straight out of books? Book knowledge won't change very much over a lifetime (unless it's cutting edge science), and college presents itself as no special advantage when in comes to learning this kind of knowledge. By your logic that the thing that makes college special is that it is a carefree time free from responsibilities, you would be just as well served during your college years if you were sent off to a desert island for four years with a bookcase full of books.
What does make college unique is your almost unlimited access to professors, the people who spend their entire lives advancing the frontiers of knowledge and thinking of new ways to use that knowledge. Yes, some of your professors can help you to understand your academics better. But I would argue that by college age, one should be moving towards the goal of teaching him or herself things. When you're out in the real world, in a job, no one sits by you telling you what the relevant skills to learn are and making sure you learn them. It's up to you to pick out and pick up on these things, so I would argue that having a teacher be intimately involved with your own learning process all the time when you are college aged is regressive and counterproductive. What is the use of professors then? Most professors, I would hope, are producing something of value to the world beyond their small academic field. Even an african-american literature professor can be an "expert" on black cultural trends and attitudes in contemporary America who may be interviewed on a TV talk show or cited in the newspaper. This kind of knowledge is not purely academic, but that doesn't make it any less valuable. Now, it is this, rather than book knowledge, that you get the unique opportunity to experience in college.
In one of you previous comments you wrote: "The main aim of college is to educate us in academics. After all, where else can you go for an education like that?" Actually, I think that high school is a pretty accurate answer to your question. I for one would hope that my college experience offers something my high school experience didn't.
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