I spent more than eight years in college. In that span of time I’ve heard the word academic or academia thrown around like it was a frisbee on the quad. What does it really mean? And why are all of these quasi-intellects repeating it?

The word comes from akademeia, which was just outside ancient Athens. It was there that the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center for higher learning. Sociologists divide academia into four different categories: Ancient academia, early academia, academic societies, and the modern university.

Someone who works as a researcher or educator is often referred to as an academic within universities. More commonly, someone who is well educated, not necessarily by an institution of higher learning, is also called an academic.

It is interesting to note that Plato’s original design for the center of higher learning was free and open to the public. Of all the attributes we could have taken from his original model, why wasn’t that one of them?