A PURPOSEFUL UNIVERSITY LIFE
(Background: This Straits Times Forum letter published on 12 September 2014 is in response to a National Post article "University should be a place for soul-searching, not just money-grubbing" by David Brooks at http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/09/10/david-brooks-university-should-be-a-place-for-soul-searching-not-just-money-grubbing) 

I refer to last Wednesday's article "The commercial, cognitive and moral purpose of university life" by David Brooks. It has restated the oft-repeated distinctions between the different purposes of university education as if they are mutually exclusive or even in conflict with one another.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I would say that tertiary education is the activity that progressively teaches you how to gather, understand and utilize information to hone your mind, to cultivate your interests and to motivate you to become a useful member of society. It also helps you to create your self-identity and to make sense of the world so that you can respond to it morally.

Such a deeper and enlightened experience would endow you with useful skills to be a productive person in your future career, to be able to make better life decisions and to be a morally-reliable citizen; all in one process.

So, it is not either one or the other purpose being the flavor of the current times, but rather the harmonious integration of all three purposes that makes university education so rewarding.

The reason why universities seem to be singularly absorbed into the commercial ethos is that students have now adopted a narrow and misguided view of education as a launchpad for getting ahead. In my view, the fault of their failure to instead embark on a authentic journey of self-improvement, intellectual excitement and moral awakening lies almost solely with the students themselves.

Daniel Lee