Melody Tremain
Forbidden Knowledge
Sarah Newlands
March 16, 2006
Back to Inquiry and Critical Thinking
What Do I Desire My Education To Be, Or, What Do I Want Out Of My Education?
This is the second paper I have written about this topic in the past week. I decided to start from scratch because the first paper was mostly a therapeutical piece, allowing me to work through my feelings and frustrations. Trust me, it helped immensely.
Ever since I was young, I was constantly reminded about college, from the fourth grade on, perhaps even younger. It has never been far from my mind that my father’s side of the family was always well educated, and very middle class. It was never voiced, but there was a feeling that he married very poorly, resulting in a divorce. He being an only child, it has been seen as him “letting down” the family hopes. I, being the oldest, was looked on as a vital link to continuing the tradition.
For as long as I can remember, college has been a part of becoming an adult. You know, you can’t get anywhere with out at least a bachelors degree! And if you get that, it hardly means anything anyways because so many people are getting them. A Masters is what you need…competition is brutal!
College is intended to be just a piece of paper that signifies that the knowledge of how to become a vital part of society has been thrown at you. It honestly has never occurred to me that college is intended to broaden your mind. All you would need for that is a book.
But college has been anything but what I have expected. In German, there are no verb charts. In theater, we discuss what an important role actors have in society. In FRINQ, we have an open podium, which is growing dusty with disuse. In high school, I yearned for these things, for people to want to be in class, for them to care about what we are talking about. I would yawn my way through class, and scrape by on the test because I read the book out of boredom.
I really enjoy the pretenses that this class is built on. I relish the idea of reading and discussing and reading. So I have decided that is going to be my part of the puzzle. I have decided that if I am not going to enjoy college, and college is preparation and part of adulthood, then I cannot enjoy adulthood. So, I am going to try my hardest, but I am going to take pleasure in it and not let these years slip away unappreciated.
I will do every assignment to the best of my ability, and I am not going to waste time procrastinating. If I cannot understand a reading after banging my head against it, I am going to stop banging and start laughing at it.
This is what I am going to do, because I must. For the sake of my mental heath, and the stress I have been causing myself, I need to lighten up. My doctor recently put me on medication for ADD, and we are very hopeful that it will relieve some pressure as well.