For many people, especially students who are tired and “burnt out” after high school, the value of an education is not immediately apparent. Perhaps you are having your last summer vacation before hitting the books at an institution of higher education, or you are doing a summer internship after your freshman, sophomore, or junior year. And you still don’t quite understand what all the fuss is about. After all, why is it so important to know when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, or how to measure the density of a liquid? When will this come into play once we have what is more than likely going to be an office job pushing paper?
Of course, the importance of education can be explained using some vague platitudes that most intelligent young students won’t buy. “Because it’s good for you” or “because learning makes you a better person” never quite served as a good enough explanation for me. After graduating from college a few years ago, I can now identify very specific skills that I learned that will and have served me well in both my personal and professional worlds.
For one, I learned to think. I never realized that I did not really and truly possess this ability until after I went through the higher education system. In high school, you learn the basics—you learn how to complete certain tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. However, after I left college, thanks both to the influence of professors and an environment that encouraged intellectual curiosity, I could objectively look at most arguments and situations and analyze them while being aware of others’ biases as well as my own. This is truly a treasured gift in a world in which biases create the biggest inefficiencies both in business and government.
Another life-long lesson I learned that has come in handy in my first job as well as in my social life is how to live and deal with other people who are remarkably different from you. While you may have dealt with other people before going to college, it was always in a very controlled environment. You more than likely lived with your family like I did, and your social life was more or less regulated by a strict schedule.
In college, you will learn how to truly live with others. And especially since college admissions are designed to select students from various socioeconomic, religious, and racial backgrounds, your roommates will expose you to drastically new experiences that you may not be familiar with. Learning to get along in such a diverse environment certainly prepared me well for the working world, in which establishing a rapport with others is absolutely vital to career success in all fields.
More than just these smaller considerations, however, we can take a step back and look at the bigger picture to understand why education is so important. As Edward Everett once said, “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.” If we are to uphold the values that we hold dear, the central principles of our civil society, then education is the most important key to maintaining such values. Why? Because institutions—whether they are businesses, governments, or ideologies bounded by religious or cultural organizations—will, if they happen to be corrupted by natural human error, try their best to fool those who don’t know any better. Education, in other words, protects us from harm, whether caused by ignorance or intentional malice.
If you still aren’t convinced about the value of an education, remember that success, whether material or otherwise, is a product of luck, talent, and applying what you’ve learned. You can’t control for the first two, so if you want to come out of this life on top, then making education a priority is a no-brainer.
This guest post is contributed by Barbara Jolie, who writes for online classes. She welcomes your comments at her email address: barbara.jolie876@gmail.com.
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