The Excellent Sheep By William Deresiewicz

In the text, Excellent Sheep, the author William Deresiewicz states that college is a time and space set up to help you to think. I agree with Deresiewicz’s statement that college should help us in “developing the habit of skepticism and the capacity to put it into practice.” However, this is not always easy because college is a period in which students face multiple challenges where they form their own individual sense of self. Students often find “the soul torn apart in a painful condition, as

piece published by William Deresiewicz called “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” does exactly the opposite, as Deresiewicz, a former 8 year Yale professor, criticizes Ivy League schools for being too constricting and not allowing their students to be themselves and come out to be a well-rounded efficient member of society. Deresiewicz is an award winning essayist and critic, as well as a frequent college speaker, and the best selling author of the 2014 novel “Excellent Sheep,” which also criticizes

skills to create a well-rounded education. William Deresiewicz, an American scholar, has received his BA in psychology, his Masters in journalism, and his Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. He went on to become an English professor at Yale University from 1998 to 2008 before leaving to become a full-time writer. Since leaving Yale, Deresiewicz has written about the educational system in "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" and Excellent Sheep (2008), and in "Solitude and

Throughout a person's life, they find themselves at a crossroads at many different points, from deciding a career to picking a partner. As youth exit their teen years, they are faced with difficult decisions concerning the trajectory of their life past high school, but the endless possibilities that are now available to these young adults undermine their ability to make a unbiased, unstressed decision. With an emphasis on being able to do it all, they are left unable to choose due to fear of abandoning

Pressure on teens to go to college seems to be becoming a major issue throughout the globe. Some may not understand that financial issues are what are keeping teens from going to the college of their dreams, or maybe even one that is not very elite. People may believe that students require a nudge of some sorts to realize that they need to go to college, but others may take it too far without the intentions of doing so. College is obviously very important to obtain certain occupations, but stressing

“Good students must be reflective about what they believe, for their beliefs will shape their learning in profound ways” (Opitz & Melleby 23). This piece of wisdom shared in Learning for the Love of God expresses the importance of the beliefs one has about college, or education in general. Throughout this piece, Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby challenge students to reflect upon the way they look at their education. Many students, as well as parents and other adults, tend to not understand the purposes

When I was in my last year of high school in the Netherlands, I decided I wanted to pursue my college career in the US. My preference went out to Lehigh and I went through the application process. A few weeks later I got the news, I was admitted. Lehigh University has an acceptance rate of 26%, which means you get admitted at the expense of 74% of applicants. Since Lehigh is such a prestigious institution, the question was, were my above average grades and SAT scores going to be high enough to beat

The True Nature of Humankind Throughout the development of philosophy and human examination as a species, one problem has always seemed to be at the root of all the questioning. Philosophies exist that justify even the most extreme of governmental styles and world attitudes, from draconian governments which attempt to keep order at all costs, to carefree ruling styles which seem to suggest we should just let people self-govern. Many of these different justifications take their root in differing