Decision making under uncertainty

Although I made my decision to go to Johnston pretty much there on the spot, and never visited another private college to compare, I don’t think I went into the experience with my eyes closed. I find it necessary to stress this because some of what I’m examining here is the whole concept of decision-making under uncertainty as mapped to the experience of liberal education. Which is to say, one can't guarantee the good outcome of even the best possible decision.

I had been taking classes at the local community college in Simi Valley and had visited two University of California campuses, L.A. and Santa Barbara, as well as having hung around Cal State Fullerton years before when we lived in Orange County. So I was comfortable with campuses as mental geographies. And U.C.S.B., in particular, had offered a direct comparison to what was offered at Johnston, in its College of Creative Studies. Whereas the Santa Barbara version of experimental education offered an austere, apprenticeship model based on the development of gifts, Johnston College appeared to place a multitude of opportunities on offer, with further opportunities available constrained only by one’s negotiating talents. CCS was the studio or the shop; Johnston was the marketplace, or the amusement park.