Paul M. Davis

Since the start of Occupy Wall Street, a recurring question in the media and among the Occupiers has been: precisely who among the 99% is taking to streets around the world to protest economic inequality? The simple answer–that it’s a wide array of citizens from different backgrounds who are disenfranchised from the political and economic systems that benefit a very small elite–isn’t particularly useful for a burgeoning social movement. Many journalists and academics have attempted to paint a more definitive picture of the Occupiers, scouring tweets and hashtags, aggregating data from their armchairs. But this approach is in opposition to Occupy’s intentionally horizontal organizational structure, which prizes consensus among large groups of Occupiers and aims to let no voice go unrepresented.

For college graduates in their 20’s or 30’s facing few job prospects and excessive student debt, graduate school can seem a promising way to sit out the recession. It’s far from a sure bet, though: there’s no guarantee of future employment, it only adds to the mounting debt post-undergrads face, and it consumes time and resources that could be better devoted to making things. But there are alternatives. Don’t Go Back To School is a project by author, NYU instructor, and Yale graduate school dropout Kio Stark exploring other ways to facilitate post-undergrad learning.

“Can we find patterns today that point to the future?”