Let me tell a little story from star wars. There once was a young man who grew up on a back water planet at a time of a great galactic war. He was just trying to live the peaceful average life of a miner but life didn't seem to want to be so easy on him. So through extreme circumstances he found himself on the run and had to enlist into the Army of the Sith to find some form of relief. Yet finding relief of any sort is next to impossible in the army and especially with the sith as your masters. And yet even the simple life as a soldier wasn't any sort of respite, as he was discovered to be sensitive to the force and subsequently sent to the academy on Korriban to develop his potential. This young man, who became known as Bane, was like any good student would be and worked hard in his studies and exercises to become the best he could and would eventually become the strongest student at the academy. Yet he noticed a difference in what he studies taught him and what the instructors said. After discovering this twisting distortion of the force, he set out to cleanse the dark side of the force by destroying all the sith of this degenerate order, which he succeeded in doing and thereby brought the dark side back into its proper frame of order.
Now to relate this to life. Have you ever wonder why throughout our lives we are forced to partake in events that are rather insignificant in the scheme of our lives? In particular I focus the question towards academic requirements in our education system. I do see the necessity of a good grounding of basic knowledge that is achieved throughout high school, with reading, writing, mathematics, and etc. Especially since those different area of study can produce ideas of a career choice that a student would like to follow. But why the heck as a 22 year old, legally considered adult with a clear and concise direction that I have for my life, am I being forced to take subjects of study that I know for sure will not increase my intelligence for the simple fact that I don't care to learn about it. Does it make since to have to spend money taking classes at a university that I have no interest in and yet am forced to take because some old "scholar" who thought he was smart says I have to take? Socrates didn't become intelligent by following another man's idea of what he should know, but he study those areas that interested him and who could call him ignorant if he didn't know basic algebra. There is no point of asking a historian how to do calculus, he doesn't give a crap. You ask a rocket scientist about calculus because that's what he cares about. Alas, we are forced to waist our efforts studying that which might as well be a fart in the wind for all I care about it. If only I had a lightsaber and telekinetic abilities, then I would have something really worth studying. Not to mention the power to change idiocracy.
I agree with this. It really is kind of idiotic that we have to run around taking classes that will just be forgotten the minute we finish the exam. Are we not college students? As college students we should be free to study what we want, things that interest us, things that will advance our career and be remembered and called upon for years to come. In this way we can truly value and become more excited for our careers in college as we study information that we know we will use again.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree in one way and disagree in another. The fact that this class is focused on blogging in my opinion is not helpful to most majors that students will be taking. Yet I do feel that the main focus of the class, being writing and rhetoric, will be a great help in life. Knowing how to properly sway people to do, think, act, and follow what you think, want, and desire to happen will be greatly beneficial to your major, no matter what you are focusing on.
ReplyDeleteI took statistics my freshman year and don't remember a thing..... Now, as a senior, I have a class that I need to use stats to understand the concepts.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think makes taking harder courses like statistics irrelevant to our studies is when it is something that we don't reinforce once we are done with the semester. Our memory over time forgets things, like statistics, unless we devote constant practice and study to those concepts.
But instead, what we do is take a difficult course like stats for four months and then we're done and never have to think about it again.
My point is that taking my stats class was useless because I now have to relearn all the concepts again for the class I have now. I seriously don't remember a thing.
I know that college helps us become more rounded as an intelligent human being, but spitting out facts, and then never reinforcing those concepts again doesn't help.
I couldn't disagree with you more. Everything you learn you can relate to whatever it is that you are interested in. If you go into a class with the mindset that you will not get anything out of it, you are absolutely right. You need to find what the class expects out of you, not what you expect out of the class. Doing things that we don't like is good for us, in every way. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
ReplyDeleteOf course there will be classes you don't enjoy. But there will be classes that you will learn you love. Its so very important to be well rounded in intellect. Of course a historian probably can't ramble on about calculus, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't CARE about it or that he didn't learn it.
ReplyDeleteMost things we learn in a classroom are deceiving in the sense that it applies to much more than a final exam at the end of a semester. I learned more about character and integrity in a math class than I learned about math.
School is about what you strive to become. What you learn to be.