The core theme is that the primary value of higher education, particularly at the undergraduate level, lies not in vocational training for a specific job, but in developing the ability to "learn how to learn" and cultivate critical thinking skills, which foster adaptability and long-term success in a rapidly changing world.
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hi I'm Ally Jackson Jolly I'm here with
Dr Marcus Collins who's a clinical
assistant professor of marketing um at
the University of Michigan he is also
the author of for the culture the power
behind what we buy what we do and who we
want to be so welcome Marcus hi how's it
going yeah glad to talk to you we this
is the third in a series of
conversations we've been having um
around College as a investment one of
the larger Investments that people will
make in their lifetime um and how they
should be thinking about that return on
their investment um it's appropriate
because right around now if you have a
student at home a senior at home or if
you're a parent or a professor you know
that students are getting their
applications in right now and getting
ready for those decisions to come back
so consumers of higher education are
really thinking about this right now and
so I wanted to ask ask you um what do
you think are the big things that these
students should be thinking about in
terms of making sure they get the most
out of their investment if you would
have asked me this 10 years ago I think
my answer would be different but having
uh been a part of Academia for almost a
decade now and teaching U at a high
caliber uh
University my answer different so back
then I would have said oh you need to go
to a place where uh you know where your
major is really good that you can you
know learn from really good professors
and you know you can have a really great
experience and you can get a job after
the fact because people going to see
that brand on your resume and it's going
to Signal something about you and you're
going to open up more
doors I think today my thinking is a
little different because I feel like I
have always been taught or had always
been taught to think of college as a
vocation as a place where I study my
vocation right uh if I want to be a a
marketer I study marketing if I want to
be a writer I go into writing right or
creative writing where the case may be
or maybe English but what I found though
and maybe this is a bit provocative I
think that college is better seen as a
place to learn how to learn to learn how
to learn how to develop critical uh
thinking skills that enable you to be
able to put in almost any situation and
navigate it with some level of skill
some Acumen of of of knowhow because
learning how to learn is almost one of
the most critical things to have and I
realized that in my undergraduate
experience that I didn't know how to
learn so I struggled mightily through uh
my undergraduate experience in the early
years cuz I didn't know how to learn
took me a long time to be a good learner
and as a professor now but I tell my
students that the very best thing I can
give you the most important thing I can
give you is perspective a way of seeing
the world because skills are going to
come things are going to change you have
to adapt to these new things but the way
you see the world would be a way by
which it's framed so if you have the
ability to widen the aperture to keep
seeing the world in many different ways
because you know how to learn then you
can adapt to any situation and that's
really what's going to give us that's
going to be sort of the uh the best
determinant of success of the job you
want of the high salary you're going
after all these things are byproducts of
our networks of our opportunities and
our abilities to rise to the opportunity
so um that's so it is a little
provocative but I really like that
that's really an interesting way of
thinking about it but let me ask you
this because um there's all kind of parents
parents
everywhere that know that stem jobs are
the jobs so is there is it better to
learn to learn how to do stem like is
there any value in learning to learn a
specific skill that um we look at the
economy and we say okay that's where the
economy is going or do you think that
just cart blank you can learn to be a
critical thinker and and and do that in
stem or in journalism or well we say it
this way say um I want to write code
okay great I want I want to write code
so I'm going to go to school to learn
how to do that the idea then is that in
four years I still want to write code
and what I have learned will be able to
help me do that but in the world of tech
it is constantly sorry in the world of
tech it's constantly changing therefore
you have to be able to be nimble and be
able to be flexible to change right so
we' say say oh don't just take
engineering courses take some Behavioral
Science courses take some of these
courses to help round you out and that's
another you know way of euphemism of
saying to see the world in many
different ways and different lenses so
you can pull at these things so while I
say if you want to be a doctor that is a
vocation I want to be a doctor right so
I'm going to go a doctor driven track
but if you're like look I want to be in
business oh let's talk about that right
that's a this is how I want to apply my
skill the environment in which I want to
apply my skills then I'd say great now
we need to learn how to learn so you can
navigate the environment well think of
it this way for I teach at a business
school um someone says I want to go into
into operations great I want to go into
Supply Chain management I have never
received a phone call from any of my
classmates in the NBA program that said
hey was that that that law that Litt law
thing again give me that that that
calculus again no no no you know we call
our classmates asking for I have a
problem with my manager I'm having a
problem with this employee who I can't
get to do a thing my my leadership do
doesn't recognize they don't see me how
do I break through these are things that
aren't taught in a vocation they're
taught they aren't taught in school as a
vocation they're learned throughout the
way how do we learn how to learn I think
that the when I I gu sort of focus group
of one when I started to learn how to
learn the world open up for me when the
World opened up for me I start to say
ooh if I want to do that I need to learn
these skills I'm going to learn those
skills oh if I want to learn that I need
to understand this this idea this
concept this Theory so I go learn that
and the Alchemy of those things help me
be better suited to solve the thing I
believe that if I were doing that
earlier I'd probably be in better places
but I think that the notion here is that
in those early years we are learning how
to apprehend the world and make sense of
the world then we say okay I'm ready to
go do it and then the master's program
is about being an apprentice I know I
I've learned how to learn I've got some
skills I want to be a master at this
thing so I go into a master's program
right from journeyman to Apprentice to
Mastery and then I go okay now I can
apply these things in all the many
heterogeneous ways in which they come to
be but it starts with being able to see
the world in multiple ways so I that's
so I love this idea about choosing a
college or a program based on at least
from an undergrad level um being able to
learn to learn um does that make the old um
um
Stern Professor sort of a thing of the
past because if you want to learn teach
someone to learn you want to make it fun
right you want to make their your
students have fun doing it feel good
about it so in your view is there sort
of like a college professor type that is
going to be outdated well I think the
idea of Professor like I'm going to
profess things to you in a very
professorial way I think that just like
any uh media consumption habit have been
disrupted that people going to have
different expectations the same thing
goes in the classroom I I tend to get my
pedagogy from uh a gentleman named Jean
P right I'm a pan kind of guy and he
believed that people learn when they
find themselves in a state of cognitive
uh cognitive dis ibrium right that is
the world I thought I know is disrupted
now I have to allocate all my energy to
putting the world back together again
this is how I tell my students uh my my
daughter uh Georgia used to be obsessed
with cows right and we're on a road trip
and I go hey Georgia look at those cows
over there she go I don't see any cows
my wife goes the cows right there honey
what are you talking about she's like I
don't see cows well the cows we were
pointing to were Brown in Georgia's mind
cows are black and white say moo and eat
grass she was like them ain't no cows
and in that moment Georgia found herself
in a state of cogn disequilibrium and
she had two choices she could say oh
cows are black and white and brown and
now see the world differently or she
could say Mom and Dad y'all wrong that's
not a cow she would have strengthened
her current stance in the second
iteration but if she said oh these two
things exist she would have learned and
that's how I tried to teach like I think
of myself as not like a professor but as
like you're Obi-Wan Kenobi sort of
leading you through Jedi Knighthood by
providing experiences curating an
environment where you are are in
cognitive disequilibrium and I'm giving
you sort of the skills the tools the
provocations to help you put the world
back together again and I believe that
my students walk out thinking like I see
the world differently like I've learned
how to learn about the world around me
my schema has been broken and therefore
I have learned how to allocate cognitive
energy to make make sense of the world
to make meaning of the world I have
these theories I have these examples I
have these case studies to pull from to
help me make meaning of the world should
my world be disrupted again so that as a
institution we are making lifelong
Learners and when we are lifelong
Learners not only we become good
standing citizens in society we hit that
social uh aspect of things but those
people typically perform better in the
workforce they're typically more
ambitious they're typically have better
ideas they're typically more creative
typically more Innovative and therefore
all those things that we aspire to from
uh a financial Capital perspective we
are laying the groundwork the foundation
for people to get access to it h so if I
am looking to I just got my acceptances
and I want to know like which of these
universities are going to help me do
that but I I think I hear you say like
have transferable skills um and um just
be a good critical thinker and and
learner um how do I what do I look for
what are the what do you think are the
um sort of like little tipping points
that I know or the little tip offs that
I know that this University is going to
be good at that for me so my niece
Sydney right now she's a a senior in
high school and she's applying all the
things she's doing all the things right
now um and she's interested in food
science she's always been into baking
and that's kind of what she likes it
gets her gets her going and she thinks
in her mind right now that she's going
to be in that field and I go that's
great so I say Sid you should look for
schools where they do that well right
but pick the schools where you feel like
you're going to be able to learn best
that is the environment is curated so
that you can become a good learner and
you choose this major because you're
excited about it the idea of choosing
Majors you're excited about is that when
it gets hard because it's going to get
hard you can at least say I at least
like the subject matter and you know I
didn't learn that until I was in my
doctoral program they tell you Hey
listen whatever you're going to do as
your dissertation you better be really
interested in it because it's going to
get really sucky at some point it's
going to get really dark it's going be
really heavy and you're going to want to
quit but your your affinity for the
subject matter your affinity for the
topic that's going to keep pushing you
that's going to keep moving you forward
so you're learning about this thing that
you're interested in while you're
learning how to learn and in in in an
undergrad experience and this why I tell
Sid that like Sydney like you want to do
food science that's great go to the
schools and do that well but even if
they don't do that you can have a
proximal thing like chemistry for
instance right so like you are adjacent
to the thing that you want so you still
have some interest in it but you go to
the schools you go to the places where
you feel like the environment is curated
to help you learn but also you're
learning with the people that you think
you're going to learn best from and that
hopefully they'll open up some Financial
capital for you along the way yeah I
love it um thank you I actually have a
senior myself getting ready to go to
college so I will take some of this
advice home with me um but we're out of
time thank you so much for um being here
making us all a little bit smarter about
um how we can invest in our higher
education in a way that we will will
serve us well and return our investment
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