Monday morning rant: On being intellectually starved

This post is kind of ranty. You’ve been warned.

Last week, my husband sent me a link to a Yahoo! Finance article about this guy, Ken Ilgunas, who graduated from college with a decent amount of student loans, moved to Alaska to work (with a 6 month AmeriCorp stint in Mississippi), lived super cheap and paid off all of his debt in just a couple of years. Good for him. Not a very original story but I give the guy props for not wanting to live in debt and doing what he needed to do to make sure that didn’t happen.

I can’t fault him for that. So kudos to you, Ken, for sucking it up to not be saddled with student loan debt. I can’t imagine Alaska at certain times of year was all that fun. (And am I the only one who wants to know how he handled that whole midnight sun thing? Because that would be interesting. He might have covered it in his book. I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet.). He displayed a good work ethic and desire to live debt free that maybe more of us should show.

But it kept going.

The story continued with how Ken decided he was “intellectually starved” from being on the road (more on this in a bit) and felt the need to return to grad school. And not just any grad school. Duke University. After a couple of years in Alaska, I’d pick somewhere warm, too. But why Duke? Was it the prestige? He claims it was because the school had an affordable liberal arts Masters program (let’s pause for a minute here and say this…a Liberal Arts Masters degree? I’m all for higher education but Ken. Really? You couldn’t pick something practical to further your education? What the hell are you doing to do with a Liberal Arts Masters that you can’t do without one? Hell, I have a Masters in Public Policy and it was hard for me to put that to use. And it’s a practical degree. Sort of) but I have other opinions.

For instance, I think that his whole living in a van experiment was constructed from the beginning to get a book deal out of it. I think he wanted to do something that extreme at a prestigious institution so he looked appealing to publishers and an audience and all that. Yes, he might have done it partly to save money (oh, and as it says in the article, he had met a man in Alaska who had been living in his van and “seemed fine with it”. My opinions on this are a post unto itself) but living in a van is not the only way to get a Masters degree debt free (for a perfect example of this, go visit my friend Jen and read all about how she got her Masters from Harvard..HARVARD…for $500 and without scholarships).

Second, being homeless is not something to make light of. It’s not cool, trendy, a fun experiment, or anything like that. I feel that’s what he did when he chose to live in a van. He did is as a fun experiment (and also to “get one over” on Duke. Good for you, Ken. You outsmarted the system. Until you got caught. You proud of yourself now?). When the article describes how he lived, it read like a “how to be homeless” manual which to me is just kind of horrible and insulting. Because his homelessness came from a place of privilege not circumstance. Now I know there is a whole community of van dwellers who opt to live out of their vans for the purpose of having lifestyle freedom or whatever they call it. I don’t think that’s what Ken did, though. Ken did this to prove a point.

And I’m not sure I agree with that point.

Third, he claims that his first semester of van living, he didn’t want anyone to know about it because he was afraid it’d get talked about on Twitter and Facebook. I call bullshit. I believe he didn’t want people to know about it because he was saving up all the information to be released on his own calculated schedule. Having buzz about it beforehand would eliminate a lot of the surprise element and detract from the story he was trying to create.

And then there’s the whole business about him being intellectually starved. That’s the phrase that burned me up. Because a) if he was, he didn’t have to go to Duke to feed his mind. There are plenty of good schools that can accomplish those goals without him having to dabble in elective homelessness and b) there is NO WAY anyone in this day and age should ever claim to be intellectually starved. Let’s examine a handful of ways you can prevent that:

1. Read. Books. Magazines. Newspapers. There is an abundance of reading material available, especially if you have a tablet and some way to get an internet connection. If you are in some remote village with no internet, buy some stuff to read. In Ken’s case, he had money to buy a van. He certainly had money to buy a tablet or paper based reading material.
2. Write. He claimed his writing skills were suffering. You do not need to go to school to practice your writing skills. For instance, you can start a journal. Create a blog. Buy a textbook and do some writing exercises. There are a number of ways to keep your writing skills sharp without going to school.
3. The internet. Granted, this only applies if you have a connection but if you do, you can: watch TED talks, get educational podcasts, take a free class (Lifehacker has a list of dozens of free classes. Also there’s iTunes U), watch documentaries (any of those Ken Burns documentaries are basically the equivalent of a college class), and, if you’re still at a loss, BuzzFeed has a list of 24 skills you can learn for free if all you have is a computer.
4. Talk to people. Another skill Ken claimed was dwindling was his ability to speak. So. Many. Thoughts. But you know what’s a great way to work on your speaking skills? TALK TO PEOPLE. It’s free, fun, and sometimes educational. Conversations not enough? Then take a public speaking class, join Toastmasters, audition for a play…anything that won’t cost you anything but time and will improve your speaking skills.
5. Arts. The arts are so educational. Music, plays, concerts, museums…they all offer so much in the way of enriching your mind, feeding your soul, and any other cliche you want to throw in there. If you look hard enough (and by “hard enough” I mean do a Google search), you can even find which ones are free or have reduced admission certain days or nights of the month. A free play or concert is kind of hard to beat.

I’m going to stop now. Because I think this is enough rantiness (is that a word? It should be) for a Monday morning.

I know that there are merits to this guy’s experiment/choice/whatever you want to call it. But the way he went about it, and many of the attitudes he displayed, got my panties in a bunch. So, I’m curious. What do you all think of what he did (based on the limited information in the not so fantastically written article about him)? Do you think he went a bit overboard going to Duke because he was “intellectually starved”?