The end of an era

The school year in Israel runs a bit differently than that of others in the world. Because of the multitude of Jewish holidays at the start of the Autumn (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah), the Israeli university academic year doesn't start until mid- to late-October. And, since there's no Christmas break in December, it ends around the beginning of January with the spring semester starting in mid- to late-January when many other universities do.

This year has been a little different, though, as there has been a שביתה/shvitah/strike that prevented the semester from starting properly. The senior university lecturers were striking because of poor pay both compared to other public sector employees in Israel and comparable jobs outside Israel; if my memory serves me correctly (which it usually doesn't, but I can't find the exact figures right now) the average pay for a senior university professor was about US$18,000/year.

Since the semester was supposed to start mid-October and it's now mid-January, you can imagine that the survival of the semester and the whole academic year was in jeopordy. The university presidents said that if an agreement to end the strike didn't happen before Friday at noon, that the semester would be cancelled and possibly the year. After heated negotiations between the professors union, the university presidents, and the Ministry of Finance, an agreement was finally reached Friday morning.

So why am I banging on about this? It didn't affect me at all; ulpan and overseas classes weren't affected since those teachers are paid from the students and not the government. The reason is because it's my friend Roi's first day of university today. At 23, he's starting his Bachelor's degree in the best field in academia: psychology. And he's not the only one. Because of the mandatory military service that Israelis have to do from 18-21 for men and 18-20 for women, people don't start university until after that and many take a few years to travel and work.

I remember when I started university, what feels like 1,000 years ago. I was 18, just out of high school, and was starting my degree in music education at a university in Dayton, Ohio. I had no idea who I was (though I thought I did), and only kind of knew what I wanted to be doing in college much less the rest of my life. I wonder what it would have been like to not have gone directly to college, to get some work experience or traveled around again, to have done some self-exploration before getting right into higher education? Your college education determines, to a large extent, the course of your life. Is that a decision I want to be making at 18, ignorant of the world within and around me?

I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened had I given more to the college exploration process. I didn't look at many schools, went into a field I'd been heavily involved in my whole life without exploring others, and didn't have any greater plans in life than to graduate. What would I have chosen if I'd been a little older and wiser? Would I have made the same choices as I did then? Would I still have ended up where I am now, studying psychology with the deaf community in Israel?

I kind of like the Israeli approach to education: do your military service, grow up a little, take a few years to figure out what you want to do, and then start learning. Many people in Europe do the same thing between high school and university: their gap year, either traveling or working abroad to experience more of the world. How many people in the US are working in a field completely unrelated to their degree? Isn't it something like half? Shouldn't that be telling us something about our education system?

I wonder, if I were a university student here, what the university life would be like with an older student population. Would it be more mature? More focused? Less comraderie as people already had their lives established? What is the experience like for the professors to be teaching older students? It must be very different for all involved.

So here's to my Israeli friends, who are either starting or resuming their university educations today: מזל טוב ובהצלחה!