feld-tell1

TELL assignment Step 1: What do you believe is the purpose of a college education? What does it mean to be educated? What experiences have you had with education that led you to this belief?

I believe that the purpose of a college education is to further pursue and gain knowledge in a field of your interest. Coming to college is different than high school in the fact that for the most part you choose your classes and your classes are what you want to do with your life so you tend to pay more attention in them. I believe college education is not only about becoming smarter in your chosen field but expanding your horizons and experiencing new life. Especially when you leave home and move away for college you are forced into a completely different life style where your parents are not on top of you in your house. This college education is learning through textbooks and lectures as well as interactions with professors and classmates and getting a taste of the real world before actually living in it. To be educated means you are constantly learning. Of course book smarts is the first thought when the word educated is brought up but in reality being educated goes beyond that. It involves street smarts as well which for the most part are learned through everyday interactions with ones environment. When I think back to elementary school I think of having a strict curriculum where you learn x, y, and z and then you move up grades until you gradate from there, next you move onto middle school where there is more independence and changing classes so you get introduced to new ways of being taught and learning. High school is what really opened my eyes into the fact that being educated isn't just book smarts, I had to start to pick my own schedule and in some cases got to pick my teacher, of course I heard who were the easier teachers and who were harder but it was really all based on the way they teach. Coming to college is a huge change, I feel like I have learned just as much through experiences here as I have in classrooms. I have not only furthered my book smart intelligence by taking more classes but I have also become educated in the real world with real life experiences now that I am 'living on my own.'