Meiland Essay First Draft

Kensuke Uematsu　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Uematsu1
Professor James
ARW section AI
6 June 2007

Meiland Essay First Draft

　　　　　　Some people argue that college education is completely useless. Is that sure? What do you think? I knew the argument from “Shift Happens” and it says that your future job does not exist yet. In addition, half of the things which you learn in the first year will become out-of-date by your third year of college. However, is that exactly true that college education is useless? This essay will argue that a college education is really useful.
　　　　　　I disagree with the idea that college is useless because we can learn the way of thinking. There are two main points to explain my idea. To begin with, it’s necessary to know not only how to solve the specific problem but how to think sort of problems. For example, if you know the answer of the particular question, you can answer the question, of course. However, it is meaningless that you can’t solve other questions which you don’t know previously. In my opinion, you can solve questions which you didn’t know by learning the way of thinking. If you know how to think first, you will be able to reach the answer of the question on your own. Next, you have to learn the important attitude or skills in the college. In Meiland’s “College Thinking”, he said that “the content is not the main point. Much of the content that you are taught in college will be outmoded or discarded anyway in ten or twenty years. Learning intellectual skills and attitudes is far more important.” To illustrate, it’s not important to remember the answer of the specific problem but you have to remember the way of thinking and the way of acting when you are faced with a difficult problem because the skills which you learned in college will be useful in later life. Therefore, college is useful to learn the way of thinking.
　　　　　　The second reason to disagree with the idea is that students can make some groups or organizations which have same purpose of investigating or discussing about the specific topic. There are three main points to support this reason. First, students can find the people who have same interest in college easier than outside. There are many clubs or associations in college and most of them are very active so they may recruit you to their club in first month of your college life. Sometimes, there are too much information and invitation but it’s also very useful to decide the club and get a notice of the club because information comes in automatically. Next, if you join a club, it will be useful in the future. To illustrate, after you graduated the college, it’s difficult to get the information of the things which you are interested in because you may become busy and the information won’t come in automatically. However, you can get the notice of the specific topic easily by using your group network. Finally, by making the group of specific topic, you can learn more about the topic. To demonstrate, when you discuss about some topics, you can know the argument which your friends have and it will become your knowledge. Also, you can examine your idea by discussing with your friends who knows the topic well. All of these reasons, college is useful to make a group which is about particular topics.
　　　　　　Some people argue that college is useless because students will lose their motivation to study. There are two points to support this opinion. To begin with, if students know that the topic which they are studying become out-of-date after two years, they will lose their motivation to study the topic. And the study without motivation is very meaningless. Some knowledge which you learned with no motivation is lost in a few weeks or a couple of days. Next, you will have to learn something which you are not interested in. To illustrate, you have to take some compulsory subjects regardless of your mind to graduate college. You will be able to study hard about the thing which you are interested in but you will be not able to study hard about the thing which you are not interested in which is just need for graduation. Therefore, it’s also meaningless and you can’t remember so long. All of these points, studying without motivation make college useless.
　　　　　　I stresses that a college education is extremely useful because we can learn the way of thinking and we can make some groups or organizations of the people who have same interest about the specific topic but some people say that college education is useless because students will lose their motivation to study. However, it is the most important thing to know the college education is not only for studying about specific problems but for studying the attitude or skills. In addition, college is not just a place for studying. College is a place that people can make good friends and people can enjoy their hobby. Therefore, people who argue that college is useless have to think about these points. Then, they may think that college education is exactly useful.