Being Educated Research Paper

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To be educated requires more than just going to school and living day-to-day life. Education requires more, learning new ideas and facts takes real effort by gaining true knowledge. If one is to be regarded as educated, they need to be enlightened in numerous facets, which will require real effort and focus. Being educated is a choice, information can be offered to anyone, but in the end it’s up to the individual. The process of unlocking knowledge and understanding more is up to the individual, to understand and comprehend their own education and its objective. The opportunity to take their education into their own hands starts by deciding whether to attend a university or undertake their education on their own. The majority of all people…show more content…
Even though they attend higher education at a university does that promise them a full education, is knowledge guaranteed with a piece of paper after four years? Some would argue a university degree does promise to send out educated graduates, and while the student will have gained some knowledge and proficiency, it still is not a guarantee. Many intellectuals would also say a degree does not necessarily mean the student is educated. Jon Spayde asserts Abel Lomas’s quote that “Genuine education is a discourse, a dialogue, carried on within the context of the society around us…” (Spayde 68) He affirms that education is not found within the confines of a school, but that it surrounds us in our daily lives. A complete education cannot be obtained by solely graduating from a university. Many will go into university with goals in mind, tied to their specific major, and will focus the majority of their effort on getting to the point where they know an immense amount about their specific topic. In their mind they will have become educated, and while to an extent they will have been, they will not have gotten the full amount they potentially deserved. As John Henry Newman said, “If his reading is confined simply to one subject, however such division of labor may favor the advancement of a particular pursuit…certainly has a tendency to contract his mind.” (Newman…show more content…
However in our modern age is a university or college really as beneficial and essential as many may think? By receiving an education from a university becoming educated is basically promised, and following school graduates will have an easier time getting hired and being employed for higher wages. Nevertheless is a university education as imperative in our world’s current atmosphere? In the past going to a university for a higher education had more solid benefits and its results were very clear. But now with the invention, and commonality of the internet, much of what can be learned in a formal setting students can also achieve in the comfort of their own home with the assistance of a computer. Undoubtedly all that can gain from being in a formal setting could not possibly be replicated at home, and all of what can be learned on an individual’s own would be impossible to be reproduced in a university. Jeffrey Hart and Newman believed the key point of a higher education is to produce a citizen, a contributing intellectual one that by being educated benefits society. Hart writes “The goal of education is to produce the citizen.” (Hart 129). While a university can create a citizen if the individual wishes, he or she alone can also accomplish their goal of becoming a citizen. If educations main goal is to create a good citizen then a formal

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