The most beneficial thing in life is to study something that interests you. When students are choosing what college to further their studies they consider: the cost, the social status of the school, and the programs the college carries. Professor Mark Edmunson gives his message on what students should consider in his article "Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?", published on August 22nd 2011 in Issue 74 in The Oxford American. This essay is about Edmundson's viewpoint on education and that it is hard to get one. But if you do something you enjoy doing and work hard at it you will become successful. The target audience of this piece is the incoming class of freshman going into college. The message that Edmundson provides to the reader is how much positive power self-reliance has on a person. Edmundson explains how to become self-reliant: you need to follow your passion in what you want to study, fight against the institution to earn a good education, and to focus on the important things rather than having fun.
Edmundson claims that one needs to follow their own passion because you will get bored at doing something if you truly aren't obsessed with it. Edmundson starts off with a personal anecdote of a
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The author points out what is wrong with education: the teachers and students do the bare minimum and that college is just leading to more important goals. Edmundson explains how students are built up by society but colleges really want them to be, "well-rounded students, civic leaders, people who know what the system demands, how to keep matters light" (Edmundson 93). Edmundson urges students to fight as he encourages them to follow their own interests and value what they learn. Students should focus on receiving a meaningful education that will define themselves then later receiving a fulfilling job that you are happy