As I look back on my education over the years, I have been a gradual disconnect in students between learning for the sake of understanding your field, craft, profession, where this alone is the fundamental reason for studying at an institution.
In contrast with this other attitude where educational hierarchies are simply a game meant to seek some sort of status or social power. In more concrete terms it is the difference between:
"I am taking this educational opportunity to understand phenomenon X better, in hopes it can help me answer a larger academic question"
vs
"I am taking this educational opportunity since it looks good on a resume, which in itself provides me with an advantage over others in my situation"
I heard someone refer to the first attitude as academic purism (drawing from purist art movement and those ideas), but there is not much literature referring to this term. Has anyone bumped into a term for this ?
