Is College Necessary? Reflection Essay Example
📌Category: | Education, Higher Education, Life, Myself |
📌Words: | 777 |
📌Pages: | 3 |
📌Published: | 07 April 2022 |
Ever since early childhood, the expectation has been for me to attend college. My father has a master's degree and my mother has a bachelor of arts degree from a large mid-western private university and the expectation for me to follow. Through pondering and evaluating my purpose of college, I realize that college sets a deep-rooted foundation for me to achieve financial stability, to love thinking deeply, and to gain the building blocks necessary to be an accredited and licensed engineer.
Going to college is not for everyone. It is hard work and requires perseverance and a willingness to give up on short-term fun for long-term aims. This pattern illuminates a path for a stable lifestyle. It is the compound effect of small habits that built up over time. Just like saving a little money over a long period of a compound with interest, so do small study habits learned in the pursuit of a college degree compounded over time create a future financially stable individual. Andrew Delbanco, author of 3 Reasons College Still Matters (2020), says, “it’s clear that a college degree long ago supplanted the high school diploma as the minimum qualification for entry into the skilled labor market, and there is abundant evidence that people with a college degree make more money over the course of their lives than people without one” (p. 464).
When the time comes to start employment to support a wife and family. A college degree helps prevent any roadblocks or obstacles that may come up in the way of getting a job, and that will later help me become financially stable. College helps to become financially stable and achieve fewer stressful jobs with a higher likelihood of providing. One with financial stability has a barrier crossed only by those with a college degree. If one is more financially stable, they are less likely to worry about how to pay their next rent payment and can spend more time with family and friends. Although going to college can not guarantee a financially stable life, one would rather be a college graduate trying to find a job than a high school graduate trying to find a job.
Going to college also helps me to love thinking deeply about the future. As of right now, I am in my second semester of community college, which is only the beginning, as I plan to go to a university this fall. I get stressed, as many college students do, but I can think of my future family and how my success depends on me. I want to love thinking deeply and going to college to gain a degree that should be possible.
Thinking deeply about the future is good, but what about right now? David Wallace (2005) says, “Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience” (paragraph 10). What he’s suggesting is we go through life on ‘autopilot’, but we need to be able to think and act for ourselves, be reminded the world doesn’t revolve around ourselves, and think about what others may be going through instead of ourselves.
Another reason I want to go to college to be an engineer is because of my passion for building ideas. As technology is becoming more and more readily available at lower cost, more people are gaining the access to make ideas that become reality. College can help me by giving me the skills to solve real-world problems and to help create new ideas. Especially as Edward Conard, who is a Harvard graduate and author, said, “U.S. universities expect to graduate a third of the computer scientists our society demands” (469), which suggests society will demand more computer scientists and engineers in the future. It also suggests that over the coming years, more and more people with engineering degrees will graduate which may increase my chances of graduating.
One thing many people are concerned about is the overwhelming prices and wanting to avoid debt and student loans. College students, if carefully used, can use student loans to their advantage because student loans have fewer interest rates and can be used instead of more expensive bank loans. Another way to get around the overwhelming prices of college is to have students use government aid to lower their costs per semester, and students can also get a scholarship; whether it be in sports, music, or even grades, students can lower the cost of college by being one of the top students in their class and showing other universities their worth.
Going to college is important because it can help us with our lives. College can help me set a deep-rooted foundation for me to achieve financial stability, to love thinking deeply, and to gain the building blocks necessary to be an accredited and licensed engineer. Achieving these reasons can lead me to a better life and a better college experience.