College : Is The Juice Worth The Squeeze?

Throughout the essay, Charles Murray stresses the idea that college is the wonderland of finding oneself and to find the career that one would want to follow for the rest of their lives. “College is seen as the open sesame to a good job and a desirable way for adolescents to transition to adulthood. Neither reason is as persuasive as it first appears.” Murray, C (2008) Practically spoken, this is not normally the case. College is a fair amount of work, much more work than one would normally acquire through any course of a high school or secondary school setting. In no way saying that the average student cannot meet the requirement and achieve success over the amounted work, it would also be ridiculous to expect every graduate to pursue going into higher education with the expansion of work that will be given.

More people than ever before are attending college due to the endless opportunities that it provides. Louis Menand, a college professor and the author of “Live and Learn: Why We Have College,” explains the meaning of college through three theories that have been developed. Theory 1 supports the idea of the sorting-out process that separates the highly intelligent from the less intelligent. Menand’s second theory explains that college provides opportunities for developmental growth, personal growth, and teaches individuals about the world around us. These are valuable lessons that will not be learned anywhere else. Theory three supports the idea of people attending college to specialize in a specific vocation. I

What we get out of the college experience, we use in our day to day lives. Even the things we think aren’t important or useful end up becoming helpful. The material we learn in college is fundamental when it comes jobs and life in general. We are taught to make choices. We are taught how the real world works, and how to turn our education into our way of life. “…the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.” (Wallace 199).

College is an opportunity to truly discover who you are. Often enough, you hear people saying “You should really major in this field, I think you would really enjoy this career.” or, “Do you think you really want to study that? Have you thought about what you will be doing ten years from now?” filling your mind with self doubt, uncertainty, and the anxiousness of not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life. Mark Edmundson wrote an article titled, Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?, published in Oxford American addressing college students and their families how the most important thing college students should focus on is personal growth. When students take their courses seriously their engagement can help finding out who they really are and which future career will lead not necessarily to great financial success, but to a career and life that is very satisfying. Edmundson wants to inspire his audience and have them take what he is saying seriously. Edmundson uses satirical informal language and hypothetical situations to effectively persuade college students to focus on their personal growth in order to create a life and career that is deeply fulfilling.

College is an important place that can lead us to a bright and successful future. College success is more than academics; for us it’s learning how to become an adult for the first time in our life. In college we will develop skills to have relationships with professors, counselors, and with our peers. The whole college experience enables us to truly succeed. Meeting new people, becoming acquainted to different ideas and cultures, and mostly, the enjoyment of the four plus years of being in school. A couple of years from now we will look back at college as either one of the best or worst times of our lives. The one thing that motivates people to go to college is “career

Hrabowski perceives that colleges do well to encourage and promote students to be successful in their future jobs and that the process of attending college itself is sufficient in teaching such “street smarts” as reviewed by Graff. Despite some contradiction between Hrabowski and Graff in previously discussed topics, Hrabowski is in agreement with Graff on in various ways. Such as, while college helps prepare students for future jobs, these jobs are only starting points and should not be the ending point. He continues by weighing the vast complexity of college success. He feels, in agreement with Graff, there is room for improvement in college, although Hrabowski stresses “There needs to be a more effective way to help people find the correct path for personal needs in higher education.” (Hrabowski 260) Graff continues in his essay sharing that intellect surrounds everything. Researchers are known to suggest that intellect is only in regards to schooling involving math, reading, english, and science or in other words academic based things only. On the contrary Graff would argue, “intellectualism is in everything.” (Graff 265). Sports were Graffs main concern, and interest in his younger years. Consequently, it was through sports he was able to find a love to study statistics, summarize interviews done with athletes, and many other intellectual practices. It wasn’t until college, that he was able to

In her article “Is College for Everyone?” blogger and college professor Pharinet discusses the value of a college education and debates whether or not it is worth it to pursue a continued education. The author’s purpose for writing this article is to attempt to change a popular societal opinion that it is necessary to attend college in order to succeed. She argues that there are students who are often unprepared for the challenges and responsibilities of attending college, but attend simply for the reason that they are expected to. She challenges the idea that “college is for everyone” and encourages college students to question how beneficial a college education is for them personally.

College is an exciting time with plenty of challenges and difficulties. The ones who can overcome these challenges and difficulties will be the ones who get the most out of college and their degree. In my paper I will talk about what a degree means to me personally and professionally. I will also talk about different things I struggle with so far in college and different ways I can improve these difficulties, as well as how I feel about the CSI report that we took and how I believe it compares to me personally.

Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle in their book “Rereading America” feel that commencing college is a very disturbing experience. So many things we have to deal while starting college, but the major challenges are expanded difficulty levels and higher expectation which we are not familiar over the years of high school. In order to solve this issue, we have to remodel ourselves by taking up the challenge and rethink about our strength and flaws. To succeed in college we need to be mentally strong and dedicated towards our goal.

What if I am too broke to afford to go to college? College is expensive and the costs are continuing to rise. I ask myself this question everyday and wonder is going to college actually worth it. The future of higher education is continuing to evolve and I believe that college is affordable to anyone who truly wants to go. The future of traditional college is in jeopardy. Sometimes going to college and spending the money is not always the best option.

College is a chance to be free and is a bridge between the real world and school. I’m an adult and expected to behave as such; I make my own choices where I have to decide what is important to me. I have an opportunity to learn how the world works, to explore the limitless possibilities and a chance to admire how vast knowledge can be. College will change my life in the way that I can develop life skills outside academics, to be fully

College is seen as a requirement for a stable life. From an early age, we are taught that college is an essential step in life. Yet is college all that it is pumped up to be? Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill along with Charles Murray gives us a good look into the benefits and drawbacks of going to college and take us on a journey of understanding that college may be a hindrance for some rather than an intelligent move.

Who knew that a fun idea proposed with a friend would lead to discussing college together? Since we were little, we’ve been asked what we want to be when we grow up. One thing we don’t consider as a child is how we get to be these professional adults. College is an important step in achieving our dreams and living the life we want for ourselves. Education always has and will continue to be an important part of my life.

In addition to the social aspects, college teaches how to develop independent thinking. It also “exposes future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them, whatever careers they end up choosing” (Menand, 3). However, most students today perceive college fundamentally as a party scene and various forms of entertainment instead of focusing on school work. They have forgotten about the academic freedom provided by receiving a proper college education.

For many, after graduating high school the next big step is college. I never asked myself why or if I even wanted to. Yet, since I was not yet ready to join the work force, and didn’t want to disappoint my parents, I simply followed the path that I was supposed to take. For a while I had no direction, but through the loss of my high school English teacher and my dream of making my family proud, I discovered that college was the place I wanted and needed to be.