Minimum Job Stereotypes

The low-income Jobs that once required a high school diploma are increasingly demanding some type of college degree, even though there has been minimal to no change in work or level of difficulty. Lucas states that these hiring managers claim that high school graduates are incapable of good performance because they are not educated enough (Lucas). These claims are a cause for concern, because of the lack of acquired knowledge upon receiving a bachelor’s degree. According to the authors of Academically Adrift, Dr. Richard Arum and Dr. Josipa Roksa, forty-five percent of students in an undergraduate program didn’t learn much. These findings show that students are wasting their money in order to qualify for a minimum wage job. The journey of

General Education courses such as psychology, history, and sociology help explain who we are as humans and why we do what we do, while physical and earth sciences help explain our physical world. When we take these classes throughout our college career we must understand that as humans we create stereotypes for everything. These Stereotypes keep us from accepting new information about a subject. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson call stereotypes metaphors. They claim that because we adhere to what is already familiar to us, it is difficult to apprehend a new idea (7-9). In knowing this, one measure we must take should be to challenge what we know by changing the metaphors we live by. The changes to our conceptual views lead us to a deeper level of understanding; allowing us to accept new ideas as our own and because of this we can no longer revert to ignorance. Prior to college there are many things in our lives that can keep us from enlightenment. These causes may include things like our family’s values or a lack of experience. This was demonstrated as Plato compared this concept to his story about the cave. He had us imagine people shackled in a cave with blinders narrowing their view; these obstacles made them prisoners of their own beliefs. He proceeded to tell us about a man who escaped captivity, and was introduced to the light. He experienced a culture

In order for us to freely listen, we mustn’t see conversations as a means to argue. David Bohm would say that communication is about building ideas off one another; but because we hold to one side, our partner cannot express their thoughts genuinely. These concepts are what Bohm calls blocks. Blocks are thoughts that we maintain true to ourselves, and make us vulnerable in a conversation (14). In school we should focus on listening critically to the ideas that are introduced in lectures and form an in-depth connection with the professor and classmates. Bohm explains that we have a hard time communicating because of hurdles, such as a generation gap or an incline of technology. These problems can explain the lack of personal, or intimate, interactions and under these circumstances the ability to communicate is broken down (12-13). We generate arguments as a technique to fight and protect our blocks, the problem is that arguments only consist of talking and no one is willing to listen. Bohm would most likely correspond with George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s opinion of a social interaction. Lakoff and Johnson would say that because we see arguments as war or competition, it would be hard to claim an argument if it was titled something else, such as a dance (8). Bohm expresses this alterative as two people generating something new together; he would no longer see this social interaction as an argument,