What is a university? In a literal sense, it is originated from the Old French word universite, and from Latin universitas meaning the whole', and in late Latin, society or guild'. It is also derived from the word, universus. So that might mean a place where a group of people with similar goal gather and pursue their studies; however, is that all? What about the whole' in a broader sense?.
First, let us ask ourselves, what do we expect from university? Or what do we expect to gain from the university life? Knowledge? A diploma? Fame? Money? What else? Isn't there something else that we can gain from 4 years of university life? Shouldn't education be something else? What is the purpose of education then?.
All of the above questions I attempt to answer but feel most feeble to do so. In order to probe into the question we have to go deep down into the root of it "what is education? The traditional Chinese system put it as a means to produce state servants, while Plato thought its ultimate goal was to train philosophy kings, rulers of state. But well before all these, what is there in the process?.
Modern education system perversely divides the universe into arts and science, and even worse, it now concentrates more on management, information technology, and finance. The traditional humanities and classics studies have gone altogether with the short-lived natural and physical sciences. They are no more important, in a sense that they can't earn as much as the others, that they have no value' in the demoralised modern world. A hundred years ago Matthew Arnold and Thomas Huxley argued over the subject of introducing pure scientific studies into schools, and today this issue seems stupid enough when compared to the excessively flourishing new disciplines' like advertising, business administration, marketing, or tourism "only if they can be classified as disciplines at all.
If the foremost purpose of education is to help students solve the myths of this very universe, then what they solve is most likely to be the mystic power of being practical.
