I don't know when it started, but among the engineering students I am with, there has been a rise in refined selfishness and extreme utilitarianism that makes me uncomfortable. After careful consideration, I believe this is a bad phenomenon of single-value measurement, quantifying time, and result-oriented thinking that has been passed down and developed under the influence of the college entrance examination education.
Cause#
The reason for thinking about this comes from an article in the SJTU Handbook called "How Much Are You Worth" (https://survivesjtu.gitbook.io/survivesjtumanual/li-zhi-pian/ni-de-shen-jia-shi-duo-shao), and I am very familiar with the viewpoints in it. Six years ago, when I first entered university, my mother also advised me not to "waste" my time on cheap labor, and if I needed money, I could ask my family for it. In university, I should spend my time on studying and improving myself.
I used to agree with this, but after going through these years of twists and turns, I now have a different perspective.
Quantified Life and Time#
Every student trapped in the college entrance examination education has experienced the feeling of their personal value being quantified, and at the same time, their life's time being quantified. In most areas, the time in high school is fully utilized to focus on studying for the college entrance examination. Time for physical education classes, personal rest and entertainment, and developing emotional life are all considered to be time with low cost-effectiveness and are deprived. It's as if a person's energy is a constant-sized cake, and if you cut away these parts, there will be less left for academic studies.
In the article "How Much Are You Worth" (https://survivesjtu.gitbook.io/survivesjtumanual/li-zhi-pian/ni-de-shen-jia-shi-duo-shao), readers will find that it seems familiar, as it also quantifies a person's time in a certain way, except here it is referred to as "worth" or "hourly wage," which has a sense of capitalism devouring humanity. However, in terms of time and experience, college students have completely inherited the way of thinking from high school.
Overly Linear Ideal World#
In the eyes of engineering students, it seems that the world can always be simplified. Everything can be extracted as a "representation" or "variable" through mathematical modeling, and problems can be rationally transformed into an "optimization problem." Assuming that these problems can be represented, perhaps such "optimization problems" are highly dimensional nonlinear problems under the influence of emotional factors, or even discontinuous optimization problems, and their optimal solutions cannot be obtained.
In other words, when it comes to how a person should spend their time, absolute utilitarian thinking cannot be embraced.
Should Time be "Wasted" or Not#
One of the great sorrows of being a problem-solving student in a small town is that as long as you are not studying or improving (the author is also a member of this group), it is considered a waste of time, and there is a strong sense of guilt. Emphasizing that every period of time must be meaningful, just like being forced to write reflections during a trip, makes things meaningless in themselves.
On the other hand, study time is not something that can be squeezed out. For most university students, their study time does not depend on how much free time they have, but on how much energy they can allocate to studying. Doing some labor unrelated to academics, exercising, or even "wasting time" to record personal experiences on a blog may be a way to expand energy.
So I want to say, if necessary, go ahead and do it boldly, even if it means wasting a lot of time for meager gains. On one hand, it may make a tight life more comfortable, and on the other hand, it makes us cherish the time for studying and researching even more. As long as the balance is maintained, there is no need to feel guilty about "wasting time."