The Purpose of an Education, a REAL Education. by Andrea

The Purpose of an Education, a REAL Education. by Andrea - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

For starters, I am going into college next year. That is a huge step for education. However, the costs usually scare parents and students alike. So, the three out of ten kids becomes maybe five or six out of ten not continuing education. These students lose so many opportunities due to the inability or lack of interest in pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees. I remember once someone saying, "It's just a piece of paper, what's the point?" When asked, I had no response. Now, I think I would say this; "That piece of paper isn't all. Look back on what you have been through. The class time, the friendships, the life lessons and mistakes you made. Would you have had that experience if you hadn't been here to get that piece of paper?" That, truly, is the question that my generation asks; what is the point?

The point of this education, that our school administrators and parents like to drill into our minds is the job benefits. Yes, college degrees open many more job opportunities. However, they miss the point of the education itself. We go to school to learn, from kindergarten to graduate school, do we not? Eventually, once you get older, you start to think you don't need anything else to learn, and that's because we let people with no education succeed just like someone who spent years learning. Granted, experience is a form of education, but take a look at Hollywood versus Broadway. Most actors and actresses on Broadway have studied the arts in schools or all their lives and worked to get there, while most people on the big screen just ended up getting lucky, and do nothing but ruin their own image. The Broadway professionals know what they need to in order to succeed in their fields and still remain vigilant and not succumb to tricks that are supplied to the uneducated.

Personally, I believe education is what you make it. If you find the time to pay attention, or connect with other students or with teachers, it makes the education more worth it. I could compare myself with a student in my class who comes to class dreading the minute the teacher begins to speak and sits on his phone. While I am listening, asking questions and trying to connect the lesson to something larger in the scale, he is tuning the lesson out entirely. Say it was a financial literacy class, who will be better off once bills start to come in? People who say education is pointless usually do not try to be a part of it. I try to participate and go into class with a positive outlook, and through that I tend to learn things that I begin to see in the world and see how they are important. My education has a purpose because I let it.

Basically saying, the purpose of education, if you allow it, is to teach you what education itself is worth. The more educated you are, the more you are able to recognize just how incredible the education you were given is. Where would humanity be without education? Where was humanity before formal education? We know the answers to these questions through research and educating ourselves on the world around us. Education helps us see the world in ways we never could have imagined, with an understanding that makes us reflect on what we were taught. Education never ends, it only grows more. So being able to see what education has done for us as we grow opens our minds to learn more, and makes our potential endless.