Intellectual or Moral Virtues in Academia?

Today in class we discussed Artistotles views on Intellectual virtues and Moral virtues. When we broke into groups we discussed or rather went on a rant about the way college's conduct themselves on grading and how society has accepted this GPA scale for how "successful" you are. From what I have learned, college is the yearning for a person to want to expand their mind and become a better person. With this thinking of GPA is all and how society focuses on getting the highest GPA possible, it leaves little or no room for freedom of thought. We have been taught that grades are the only things that tend to matter up. What ever happened to the idea that we are in college to not only test ourselves and better ourselves but to become better as a person? We praise this idea that the higher the grade you get, the "better" or smarter person you are.

I for one am terrible at taking written tests because of a lack of reading comprehension and focus. Thus I tend to get below average grades in many of my classes because it is simply a read and regurgitate method of teaching. Todays' society prides itself on learning the material for the time being then never remembering it again. Thus it feels to me like we have lost site of what college is really about. Its frustrating to know that for a lot of jobs, they make first impressions off of you through a peice of paper (resume) before they even get to know you as a person. I know the material, I have great work ethics and I am great with people. The thing that scares me about todays society is that we look waaaaaay beyond that of the moral aspects of people and only look at the intellectual side.

We have lost the moral side of college where we learn through teaching, habit and then instilling these habits to everyday life. My ultimate question with all of this is, Is this actually how college is intended to be or should we strive for something more? I for one know what I am capable of but when placed on paper and put side by side with another, it is easy to be "tricked" into picking the other.



"We are not here to merely make a living. We are here to enrich the world" - Woodrow Wilson

-SWS II