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.
Angel B. Perez in the article “Want to Get Into College? Learn to fail” argues that colleges aren’t always looking for perfect student, or students that scores good. Perez supports his argument by explaining to his readers that perfection does not exist. He also tells the reader that just because we make errors in high school doesn't really mean that it’s going to define us in the future. The author’s purpose is to point out the benefits of going into college, in order to show the reader that perfection isn’t what colleges look for.
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).
Many argue that getting a higher education is not worth it, but Heather Schilling, an Associate Professor, Chair, and Director of Teacher Education at Manchester University, says otherwise. Schilling’s article, “The Anti-College Movement: Finding the Song In The Clamor”, argues whether or not college students need to be well educated to have a successful life. Schilling discusses whether college is worth it or not. This article is well-written and has strong points to prove that a college degree is beneficial in life. Schilling’s article gives readers both strong and negative points about claiming college to be beneficial or not.
While Leonhardt wrote mainly about financial worth of going to college, Matthews wrote about certain students’ mindset after high school and why going to college in this century is not as important. Although Matthews does understand the importance of a degree and how it pays off, he states that “many more workers today would have been better off not going to college at all.” Matthews states this due to the Annual Wage by Education chart that demonstrates the amount of money the 25th percentile of degree holders make compared to non-degree holders. Students don’t know their abilities and drop out of college because “the problem is the fact that students usually don’t have a great idea of how they are going to fare in college, or what sort of degree or career they will pursue.” Setting goals, and knowing the life that one wants to live will limit the college drop-out rate and increase the quantity of graduate students.
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
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 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.
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
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.
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.
