Week 4 - Eric Gip

Eric Gip

Week 4

A02

Corporatization of the University

            While the cultural differences between Latino cultures and Asian cultures are night and day, social engineering is an obstacle that all minorities have to overcome. Education laws are up to the state and unfortunately, our current government system is easily impressionable if you can pay the right price. The wealthy, powerful, and most likely elderly white male has many ways to influence education system to benefit themselves we aren’t aware of and aren’t actively searching for because the system raises us to trust the process and generally rewards those who work on the system more often than it does with those who choose to not.

            In “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.”, Fredrik DeBoer brings to light problems that I, a student at the liberal UC Davis, see in my day to day life. Student activism, such as using politically correct terms, is a great concept in theory to bring equality but through the “magnification of the powerful lens of the Internet” it becomes a double-edged sword that benefits those already with the upper hand. With the growth of social media, we’re able to see what we want to see and block what we don’t want to see; opposing political views can now be completely ignored and freedom of speech is limited due to the system we’re raised in. The goal of our education system is to prepare the new generation for the workforce and is therefore inherently biased towards corporation – their priorities are focused on the success of the company, not individuals.

For instance, 2016 was focused on the resignation of our former Chancellor Katehi due to numerous accusations of personal gains and mismanagement of university money, after she “resigned” students rejoiced but misunderstood that she was given a full year of paid leave and is now returning as a professor with a similar salary as her former chancellor role. Due to corporatization of our system, UC Davis understood that they only needed to please the “oversensitive and incurious” crowd initially for public relations, after the drama cools down they’re back to doing whatever they want.

            Quesstion: Capitalism is embedded in our culture and isn’t going anywhere, is there any way we can combat the corporatization of anything without money and how limited upward mobility is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yt6raj-S1M

            This graphic is what I was thinking about the whole time while reading Amy Block Joy’s and Fredrik Deboer’s works, school is only teaching us theories that help us pass a test, but when it comes to something applicable to day to day life such as morals and why you shouldn’t sexually assault someone, our standard curriculum just isn’t efficient enough. Other than basic writing and arithmetic, I don’t feel like I have any truly applicable life skills.