The Shortcomings of College Education Essay -- Personal Narrative

The Shortcomings of College Education "The more we know the world around us, the more successful we will be." This quote, from the introduction of my high school chemistry book, was my driving force as a teenager to attend college. My expectations of college were to gain insight into a world that I had not yet discovered. I had high aspirations of receiving a good education and obtaining a good job when I graduated. But four years later when graduation day arrived, I felt unfulfilled. In evaluating my education, I realized that I learned how to get good, but not great grades. I learned how to study to make the most of my time. The focus I shared with many of my peers was not always to appreciate the information received, but rather, to value the counsel from someone else who previously took that professor's class and maybe to be lucky enough to get a hold of last semester's examinations. Basically, I acquired useful skills for any job: to follow directions, to give the boss what he or she was asking of me, and to network and gain insight from other colleagues. It was still disturbing to me that after four years of schooling, I felt I had not received the education I initially expected. Overall, college does not bring out the full academic potential of the students who invest the time and money into an education. Teachers need to set aside their biases and restructure and develop curriculum, as well as student-teacher relationships, in order to truly develop college students into freethinking, exploratory people. Structured, pertinent curriculum is the foundation of a good class. If students are not interested in the information presented, then the class has no value to the student but to merely satisfy a graduation requir... ...heir instruction, they they should stay in the field or in the labortory where their energy is concentrated. Quit wasting the time and money of the students and give college instructors the fair evaluations they deserve. Set standards for their positions and hold them accountable for skills in teaching, not just their content knowledge. Works Cited Cheney, Lynne V. "PC: Alive and Entrenched." In The Presence of Others: Voices that Call for Response, edited by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1997. Glasser, William. "Noncoercive Discipline." In Building Classroom Discipline, edited by C.M. Charles. New York: Longman Press. 1999. Rose, Mike. "Lives on the Boundary." In The Presence of Others: Voices that Call for Response, edited by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1997.