Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Education and Money

This blog is not in any way intended to put down those who have college degrees or who are working towards to obtain one. Nor is it to discourage future college students who want to get their degree. If you have one, great. If you are obtaining one, that’s great too. I am simply just stating my opinion about college and society.

I don’t think a piece of paper should define who you are and determine if you get a job or not. You know what you know. Education is really about the passion for learning. If you wish to learn, you will. In doing so, you will improve the skill that you are learning. You shouldn’t be given a grade for that. It’s a matter of what you know and how well you know it. You don’t need a grade or diploma to tell you that. If someone asks you to build a computer, you should know if you can or not by your education. If you can, great… a job offer for you. If not, study more. And it’s a lot easier to study these days because of the wide range of resources, including the internet. If you know the problem, most likely you’ll find the solution by “Googling” the problem. This also links into a territory that I’d like to mention: education should be free. Why do we pay for college? In the United States, elementary and high school education is free, so why shouldn’t college be too? Is it because it’s in a specialized field? Before college, we learned basic skills in academics and broadened our social skills. Once we get to college, we enter a specialized field of our choice, but we are still around the same socialization. However, our experiences change in socialization for the most part because we are totally independent. We are still around people who are learning though, which is good, as we can look upon one another for guidance. We are called students… who are taught by teachers. But what is the real difference? Sure, they’ve been studying our fields for a long time, but aren’t they still learning as well? After all, most professors are doing research, in turn teaching themselves. Shouldn’t the students be doing that as well?... With the help of our fellow classmates, who could teach us as well, which is what the teacher is doing. So again, why are we paying for an education when we can teach ourselves and share ideas with our fellow peers? Is it because the teacher has a degree and the students don’t? That brings me back to my initial idea. Do you think Plato paid Socrates for his knowledge? I think Socrates just had open lectures to anybody who was interested. That’s another thing about how our society works. Why are we concerned about money? Sure, everything has a value, but why do we need to round it to the nearest dollar or cent? Why can’t we be more karmatic? What I mean by that is… if I do something nice for you, why can’t you do something nice for me, or vice versa? If you mow my lawn, I’ll vacuum your house. If you fix my computer, I’ll give you spare parts. If you buy today’s lunch, I’ll buy tomorrow’s. These are all good examples. Another one dealing with education… if you share your ideas, I’ll share mine. Granted being an amateur, you still have your research resources to formulate your ideas. All in all, I think education should come without barriers and how much you know about a subject should get you a job, not a degree. Our society has molded our minds into thinking a certain way. Keep in mind, even though we do bond together as a whole, we are still individuals with individual thoughts and ideas.

RJ

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