Society views college as the door way to success. However, many people fail to realize the same effort put into college also needs application after or failure starts creeping in from the side. Anna Chinero, a recent graduate, moved back home after failing to find a job. Chinero concludes her article, “Elevated by the Train”, by expressing, “instead of always looking out toward somewhere else, I’m beginning to look around here, wondering how I can make this neighborhood the better place my parents always sought for me.” Many graduates, like Ana, loose direction in attempting to achieve their dreams they possessed entering college.
Students should not have to be concerned about every tenth of a point on a pop quiz, which student is awarded valedictorian or who just barely made the top ten. A student should have a deep desire to learn about the world, and each individual in a student’s life, especially teachers and administrators, should be encouraging young people to pursue knowledge. Unfortunately, our educational system does not provide the proper environment for this type of exciting scholastic stimulation. Instead, students aimlessly work their way through piles of work that will only useful for passing some quizzes, a test or two, and eventually an exam. Then this cycle starts over again.
Staples critically describes that students deserve the grades because of high debt resulting in students “treating grades as a matter of life and death” (1066-1067). Students think that they are required to get high grades because it’s getting their “money’s worth,” but Staples examines they deserve a grade based on preparation of the student (1067). In most universities Staples critiques, “consumer appetite for less rigorous education” exemplifies students want less work for the same diploma. Brent Staples believes students make excuses to work less and make higher grades
In Alfie Kohn’s essay, the argument of grade expectations being too overvalued rests on a chain of assumptions, but can be argued. Alfie Kohn’s essay portrays that he wants students to find a variety of different purposes in school, and questions the idea of grades being too centralized. In detail, Alfie Kohn explains how students go to school not for the right reasons, but for the wrong reasons instead. For example, the author writes, “They’d scan the catalogue for college courses that promised easy A’s, sign up for new extracurricular-activities to round out their resumes, and react with gratitude when a professor told them exactly what they would have to know for the exam so they could ignore everything else” (para. 8).
Recently, many have begun to attack and degrade higher education in the United States. In the book How College Works, authors Daniel Chambliss and Christopher Takacs claim, “As state support has eroded, and as more students attend college in an increasingly desperate attempt to find viable jobs, the price to students of attending an institution of higher education has gone up, especially at more selective institutions” (172). So is college even worth it? Caroline Bird’s excerpt from her book Case Against College “Where College Fails Us” is an adequately written article that agrees with those who question whether college is a good investment. Bird argues that although some students would benefit from college and succeed, many fall short, wasting
Students lacking coping skills for achieving anything less than perfection is a serious problem in today’s students. The article portrays this issue perfectly because it explains how after Kathryn DeWitt received a sixty on her midterm, she thought the only way to resolve her problems was to kill herself. She had not learned to cope with receiving any grade less than perfection. She did not know how to handle the stress of the thought that her whole life was off track. This article portrays how delicate this situation is.
As a college student who is currently spending thousands of dollars to further my education and achieve a career goal, it was, at first, disheartening to read Caroline Bird ’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money”. However, after thoroughly examining her points, I now see that her essay is illogical. In her piece “College is a Waste of Time and Money”, Caroline Bird argues against the idea that “college is the best place for all high-school graduates” (1); in other words, college isn’t for everyone. Throughout her writing, Bird supplies her readers with evidence that explains how, for some individuals, college is a waste of not only time and money, but of intellectual effort, as well.
In the article “The Key to Success in College Is So Simple, It’s Almost Never Mentioned”, the author Jonathan Malesic, uses Emily Zurek Small’s college success story to support the idea that the best way to ensure that one will reap all the benefits college has to offer is by cultivating the students willingness/ desire to learn. Malesic goes on to explain that two of the biggest issues standing in a person's way of success are careerism and knowingness. Although Malesic finds careerism and knowingness to be the biggest factors prohibiting one's success, he also believes that neither mentality is “fixed”. Because of the economy and culture, he notes that students only focus on honing job readiness skills, instead of actually learning and absorbing
In today’s society, graduation exists as a college student’s main priority. These students do not concern themselves with what type of grades they receive, as long as they acquire their degree in the end. Within the article ‘Academically Adrift’ by Scott Jaschik, it claims, “If the purpose of a college education is for students to learn, academe is failing.” Students now fail to gain much knowledge throughout their collegiate years. In agreement with the article, the lack of academic rigor remains the principle source of this failure.
A rising issue in today’s society is deciding whether or not college is worth the cost. There is an extreme amount of pressure that is forced upon high school students by parents, teachers, and peers to further their education and attend college. However, there is research that challenges the thought that college is the best possible path for a person to take. College may be a great investment for some people, but it is not meant for everyone. This is supported by the arguments that colleges are expensive, jobs do not always require a college degree, and students are forced to choose a lifestyle before being exposed to the real world.
Today more and more people are going to college. Most people go to college to build their knowledge and to study a specific field that they want to get a job in some day. College is marketed to most people as a creative place where they will learn everything they need to know to get a job and enter the “real world”. As college students right now, don’t get us wrong we do learn many things but, we have found that in many classes we take, we just focus on getting a good grade or a passing grade. At the end of the semester we walk out of some class barely learning a thing because we retain information just long enough to do good on a test or exam and then forget it all together when the class is done.
On the other hand, there are also students who don’t have the teachers that care or the resources that will help them excel. Inevitably, they are doomed to limited opportunities and hope from higher institutions. Colleges and universities that are too meticulous on SAT and ACT scores, are forgetting that a student’s GPA, and the course load they took on, and the awards and recognition they’ve received, says more about them than their SAT or ACT score. Four years of hard work in high school, speaks more volumes than a four hour
Now and again, students complain about how they never have time to accomplish their goals and coming up with “a goooooood reason” (Roth 42). In the previous chapters, students learned the tools students need to be successful, but how do students put into action? Most people are scared to have responsibilities and want to back away from trying and putting in an effort. Students say and think that everything will be handed to them, but the successful students make their dreams and goals a reality by capitalizing on the opportunity. To be successful, student must be able to accept, adapt, and apply all they’ve learned from this book and use it in life.
College is a time in a student’s life where they pay a lot of money to take classes that help shape their career. Colleges look for students whose grade point average and standardized test scores are high. “Colleges look for students who took the most challenging courses available to them” (CollegeData). Some students who maintain above a 4.0GPA struggle to make above a 21 on the ACT, the benchmark score to get into most colleges. Some students who prove themselves intelligent may not do well taking a standardized test, yet they still know how to interpret and solve everyday problems.
For many people, higher education is needed as they pursue their desired career paths. However, the same seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, envy, greed, anger, sloth, and pride that keep one unhappy and unmotivated in everyday life, even if one does not realize these are the source of their unhappiness, can also be applied even more specifically to students. Most will struggle with at least one of these areas, if not all of them, in their academic journey. Being aware of the common potential downfalls, though, can better set up a student opportunities to overcome them. This, in turn, will help them in overcoming obstacles in their life after school as well.
