They Only Want @#!*$ Bridges

Having spent the last four and a half semesters in a PhD program, with occasional focus given to the philosophies of the legitimacy of higher education, I find myself in an interesting place. At the end of this semester, I appear to be moving to a region that harbors suspicion of university folk. Specifically, it seems that the prevalent feelings of this area are as follows:

1.       Educated people are snobbish and elitist.

2.       Universities breed ineffectual individuals who rely on mommy and daddy to pay their bills.

3.       College people cannot survive in the wilderness. ..if a survival situation arose, they would not be able to function.

4.       College folk do not live in the “real” world and they need to wake up.

I have been trying to find a doctor in this region as I will need to relocate the month prior to the delivery of my little girl. Of the two doctors recommended to me, one is no longer delivering. The other one is delivering but I felt uneasy when the nurse returned my call and repeatedly spoke to me in noticeably incorrect English. I decided to meet the doctor, though, and waited to no avail for a confirmation of my appointment. I never got a call back. I finally called back myself and was told by the staff member that she was going to call me back but had lost my number.

Later, when I expressed concern about the lack of professionalism, I was informed that I was just bashing the region as usual.

How do we reconcile these clashes in ideals?

How can I reconcile these clashes in ideals?

I have always found snobbery distasteful. I have always had little patience for individuals, cliques or groups who peer down their noses at others. I find the individual to be far too valuable to dismiss and I do not believe worth can be measured in a person haphazardly. Being alluded to as snobbish infuriates me. Coming under fire because I expect a level of decorum or professionalism from anyone speaking on behalf of a doctor whom I may potentially be paying large sums of money to and who may be highly instrumental in overseeing the life of my arriving child seems…well, it is completely bewildering. If we cannot expect educated, passably well-spoken people in our medical field, where can we expect them?

I keep a list of quotes in the notes documents I keep for each of my classes. This past Wednesday, I read aloud my list so far from the Intro to Graduate Studies class and one of the quotes went something like:

We don’t need Greek or Latin, we NEED f-ing BRIDGES!

I understand that bridge-builders are vital and that intelligence is NOT solely dependent on formal education. But how alarming it is to know that, centuries beyond the dark ages, we still harbor prejudice against education?