Let's talk some more about learning...

Ok. We may be beating the topic of learning, knowledge and education to death, but your last post got me thinking about college and why I am here. I feel like I have reached a point in my college career where I am genuinely excited to be here. I feel like I am using my time well and the fruits of my labor are valuable to me and society. But I truly understand that there are so many other paths besides a university education that would have led me to feel this way. Learning isn't confined to the classroom or institution, but for me, right now, I feel like this is the best way for me to get it. I can say this with confidence, because as a freshman I experienced quite a lot of angst (if it is possible for a eighteen year old freshman who isn't about to start any revolutions to feel angst) because I didn't feel this way. I felt purposeless and disappointed about my college experience. Like you said, I knew how to play the games, but winning wasn't making me feel like I was solidly on the path to intellectual enlightenment. I thought college would blow open the doors to levels of learning I hadn't experienced in high school (when I think about this vision, I imagine huge oak doors of a library opening, light streaming through, and my hair blowing back from the force of the knowledge those open doors exposed to me. Haha. But this really happens to me when I enter the Holladay library, the opening doors makes my hair whoosh back. Maybe my problem with my freshman year was that my expectations were ridiculous. Anyways...). But then Econ saved me! I feel like I have stumbled upon some hidden gem at BYU and anyone who doesn't want to be an Econ major is missing out on something, except for you, of course. I think you are the embodiment of genius.
I have told you that I spend a lot of time in the Econ lab; I work there and I do my homework there. I also just like hanging out there because when it is buzzing and busy I feel like everyone is intellectually on fire. I don't know, it's not just a place to get your homework done, but a place to pick fellow econ majors brains about why interest rates are so low, why in a perfect world supply equals demand and why our world isn't that perfect one. TAs and students team up together to find answers to questions that aren't on their homework but simply just springing from their minds. I love when I meet the TA who relishes in a puzzling question and runs themselves in circles to figure out the answer, just because you asked them about it. To me the Econ lab embodies all the exhilarating upsides to a university education. It helps with the transfer of knowledge and is conducive to the creation of new knowledge. It brings people together who are equally excited about learning (not just in the schooling sense, but in the true educational sense) and ferments discussion topics across a wide spectrum. Students and professors alike mingle in the narrow halls of the architecturally unimpressive Faculty Office Building. True, there are the people who are in their to just get the answers to Problem Set 1, but those people exit as quickly as possible and leave the rest of the cool econ majors behind. I believe that, yes, institutional education has downsides, but that I have found a little pocket where the ideals of a university educations are preserved and the university is performing at its best in bringing together people who are excited about learning.
A quick hit about the Mark Twain quote. That reminds me so much of my dad. Whenever I fretted to him about not having a purpose in college or a major (two very important things to have in college) his simple solution was, "Take hard classes and learn." He wasn't worried about it at all. I guess the idea was that BYU was a tool for me to reach my highest goal of learning and its value came from intellectually engaging yourself as opposed to achieving a sort of intellectual status symbol by declaring a major or getting into a really good program. I've always felt bad for the kids whose parents want them in a "real" major (business, finance, accounting, civil engineering) so they can be guaranteed a "real" job. I'm sure those majors are great and can be to its participants what Econ is to me, but the end is less than the means when you go into them with such a narrow purpose in mind. My dad has been so wonderful of supporting my learning in the ways I see fit. I think he and Jordan would really get along, especially since my dad didn't graduate from college until...I graduated from high school. He didn't think the degree was required to stamp him as knowledgeable, which is true.

So my final question for you is: If learning is so great, why are we so terrible at our simple day jobs (or I guess my night job) of mixing shakes and making pizzas? Haha. Actually, you just got promoted, which I never did, so maybe the question just is, "Why am I so bad at making shakes?"