- 07/03/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
The aim of this assignment is to provide a public response to a publicly debated issue. This work is dedicated to the specific topic called “Why do we not go for college”. The essay sheds light on the main argument of the definition and determining of terms “education”, “motivation for learning”, “level of education” and others. Detailed overview can allow getting the main ideas, advantages and disadvantages of a big amount of thoughts, facts and arguments. In conclusion, the inference let us summarize and sum up all the information we are going to discuss. Our core focus will be on the determining main standpoints of the main questions. I will try to answer these questions through this paper. In order to explain this theme better, I may reflect on myself as a learner: for example, consider the practices, conditions and opportunities, under which I feel learning has been most effective for me. This essay however will not be the completely descriptive of theory, or just practice, but I will try to demonstrate the inextricable links between theory and practice. It will be explained main reasons of educating in college, basic characteristics of learning and its motivation.
What are the reasons to go to college?
Stefani Subiantoro is a second-generation Chinese Indonesian who goes to college. She is the child of middle-class working parent in Indonesia. Consequently, her parents think that college will advance her life further, give more benefits, knowledge, and skills, which definitely will help her to start her path to receive further higher education in life. Her father, Eddy Subiantoro is a pure Chinese who struggled with racial injustice: while her mother, Eli Hendrawan from a low-class income family with four children. Unfortunately, none grandmother or grandfather of Stefani did not get the proper ways of an educational background.
Stefani’s parents believe that there are good reasons to go to college. While you are going to college, you are learning a lot. However, you can learn anywhere — and perhaps learn more, better, and faster if you do so on your own. Theroux (2004) stated, “College gives you two things that are harder to get on your own: a chance to network with your peers and a degree. A good teacher who moved the class along at just the right pace for you might let you learn faster than simply studying the topic on your own. But any large class will go too slowly for most of the students, while even so going too quickly for a few” (“Varied Learning Modes”, page 11). Why do people go to college? Mostly the answer is such: because it is the next thing to do after graduating from high school. I am sure it a choice of each of us, I do not suggest that you must not study in college. However, you have to know, what are you paying for and how worthy is this decision.
However, Eddy Subiantoro was educated in the college after finishing the high school. Elly was influenced by him in her rather difficult choice to study in college. Then they married, and skills they had received in college helped in having their own private company. According to the experience of parents, Stefani decided that college helps to make you a rounded person, to have better value systems, to qualify in fields you are interested in, to instill a deep sense of right and wrong.
What people get from studying in college? First, it is networking. It is said that working with other people is inherently valuable. Some people solving the same problem may much more quickly think of and, however, try out various solutions than one person thinking alone. Such experience will teach you things that you cannot learn from a book. Studying in the college is not the only possible way of getting that experience, but it rather quickly and available. According to Barbe (1979), “You get from a college: an educational path, which has been designed by someone who’s an expert in the field and has some understanding of pedagogy. A structure for daily living and a protected environment within which to make mistakes — a dorm room and a meal plan are a welcome safety net for someone who has never had to pay bills and a good first step toward learning how to run your own household” (“Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices”, page 54). It can be added that you get some people’s degree of supervision, and an immersion in a community of people who are focused on learning. Another important thing we get from college is certification in the form of a degree. It can also make easier getting into graduate school, but it is not essential. Clearly, much more important are good grades, good GRE scores, an impressive body of work, and networking with the professors at the graduate schools that you are considering. According to my opinion, none of those things has much to do with learning the course material. As it has been already said, you can learn it better on your own. Indubitably, people mostly get the first job and professionally skills because of the college education.
Research summarized in Cunha and Heckman (2007) suggests that part of the explanation might be that parental investment during early childhood shapes the potential to acquire additional skills later in life. Parents might not have responded to the increase in labour market returns, perhaps because they were not fully aware of the large increase in the returns to skills or because their children’s labour market success might not be the primary motivating factor in determining the time and resources, they devote to their children (page 65).
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