Year 2038 by Portia

Year 2038 by Portia - February 2018 Scholarship Essay

“The future is unknown, for we can’t see it nor experience it until it’s our present.”
2038 will encompass a variety of things, by then as a country America would have went through five more presidents, flying cars will be a common use of transportation, robots that emulate humans will live amongst humanity, and a tremendous advance in genetics will make it possible to where babies can be created and develop without having to be in a woman’s womb. On the other hand, pollution levels maybe at an all time high, natural disasters will be more recurring, and different species of animals will either be extinct or exploited. But as for education, the classroom as one knows it now will only be a memory of the past.
As technology provides as an essential tool in aiding in the progression of humanity, it also handicaps the upcoming generations because they are more than likely to use it. A task such as obtaining knowledge from a book is now viewed a medieval practice and the more preferred option is to just Google what is not understood. Paper media has lost its value over the course of years and knowledge is now at the fingertips of many. For the last decade or so there has always been conversation of the possibility of the development of holograms in the near future. Holograms are a three dimensional image that is projected and captured on a two dimensional surface. With this being said, this technological advance alone will alter educational system completely. Although there are already classrooms that are conducted everyday virtually, this will take it to the next level. Teachers will be able to virtually show up through hologram in the classroom, but not be there physically. The same goes for students, instead of coming up with a ridiculous and elaborate excuse for missing class, if a student genuinely does not feel like leaving their bed, they won’t have to. They can virtually project their image in the classroom and participate in the classroom activities just as successfully as if they had physically attended class. This would simulate the environment of a physically classroom setting in the terms of physical human interactions between professor and student.
But with any invention, there is always the overuse or “abuse” of it as one could say. If this became the more preferred choice of classroom attendance, school buildings and campuses will become abandoned; they would essentially lose their value. People will begin to realize there is no reason to keep these institutions open. Instead of spending federal dollars on supporting those institutions, classrooms could be conducted virtually completely and those buildings can be used for other priorities that could be prove to have a great profit. Such as chain restaurants, outdoor malls, even community entertainment centers. Also, when talking in terms of money, this invention may prove to be a financial burden rather than an advance. The amount of money it would take to create and sell this product may prove to be rather on the expensive side and overtime unprofitable.
But this can and very well will be the scene of 2038 when referring to academics. Academic integrity could definitely become difficult to manage with the ability to a hologram into classrooms. Mainly because knowledge is already at the fingertips of students now and essentially there will be no official proctor of the assessments when the student is physically home. But, with the constant changes in education, society’s officials will create a way to accommodate and overcome that issue. This will be taken internationally, one could physically be in a sleepy town in Montana and be virtually attending a class in Madrid, Spain.
So the real question is “What will you do?” Attend class from your comfortable abode? Or make the “treacherous” journey to school and receive your education?