Successful Education or Success Preparation? by Ethan

Successful Education or Success Preparation? by Ethan - February 2021 Scholarship Essay

There are alway two things that tend to shape the life of an individual, their failures, and their success. These things start off small, a failure to realise the stove is hot, or successfully building a lego set for the first time. Gradually the importance of these moments grow, until eventually, they catch on to college. Success in college means more than letters on a paper, it is learning the ability to grow, learn, and apply skills that will be essential in students' future communities. And on a broader scale, success is the result of hard work towards a goal.

Why is college often tied to success? Well, for the past five hundred years a college degree was something so closely tied to people of wealth, since colleges taught complex ideas that tradesmen would be unlikely to know or be able to pass on to apprentices. Colleges were an epicenter of knowledge and ability, where the greatest minds around would teach and learn from one another. To say one was a student of a college, set the student up in the position to be a lawyer or banker, positions of great respect and wealth in the community. As the world developed, college became available to a larger portion of the population. This led to colleges being a symbol of success through its association to positions of respect and wealth.

If this is true then why have many notable people been pushing the message that colleges are not necessary? For example Elon Musk had said on record that “college is 'basically for fun' but 'not for learning,' and that a degree isn't 'evidence of exceptional ability.'” do to the vast wealth of information we can essentially learn all the information we could possibly absorb, for free. Does this mean that, with the invention of the internet, colleges are going to become an obsolete monument of the past? I don’t think so. Though it is true that all the knowledge about any subject there is can be found on the internet, colleges have a few things that solo learning can not provide. First is resources, colleges have vast databases that students are able to open without paying additional fees. These databases include academic essays and research that have been published by masters in nearly every field of study imaginable. Second, colleges have these “craftmasters” on location who are available almost every week during tutorial for any kind of questions. Finally, they have connections, businesses of all sorts still look to colleges for the best employees they can find, offering internships that give students hands-on experience, experience that would be near impossible to find in a self-taught scenario.

In conclusion, Success in college means using colleges’ vast resources to elevate your education and create bridges from school to jobs, that students have the moment they are handed a degree. Though quantum physics could be learned anywhere, from youtube to wikipedia, the best way is always to meet the people who researched and wrote the papers and theories, because then, if students are truly interested. They can stand next to these “craftmasters” rather than learning of their work second handed.