Education: The Key to a Successful Life - Essay Sample

Introduction

Education is the process of imparting general knowledge, developing powers of judgment and reasoning, and preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. According to a Philosopher John Dewey, 'education is not preparation for life; instead, it is life itself. About two decades ago, education was something that a person indulged in if they wanted to. However, as years passed, the ideology that 'education is the key to success' got more enforced into the peoples' minds. With every day that passed, people started to believe that it was only through education that one could succeed in life. They thought that it was the only thing that one needed to be successful. However, even though most Americans believe that having a college degree will make them successful, the reality is education is not the only key to success.

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The whole education process does not only take place in schools. Going to school is not the complete package for a successful life. Attaining all the degrees offered in school and lacking in the right attitude to apply it in life situations, is all in vain. Some people drop out of school to chase the real money, and they end up being more successful than people who go through the whole school system. Schools teach about algebra, logarithms, and the life cycles of amoebas, however, such knowledge doesn't apply in the real-life world. To survive the real-life world, one needs skills, the right attitude and determination to achieve their set goals.Moreover, people define success as having all the luxuries, Porsche cars, having a huge bank account balance and owning properties all over the world. However, success is basically achieving your own set goals. Having an impact in the society is itself success. It is definite that achieving one's goals automatically comes along with the properties, though.

Looking at the most successful tycoons in the world, very few of them hit the jackpot on the strength of their academic prowess. Most of them are not necessarily educated, and it would be such a wrong decision to limit one's scope to education. Instead, it is wise to pursue other frontiers as education is not everything. Basing the argument on the C.E.O of Microsoft, he confesses a lot that there are subjects that he failed, and his friends passed. However, he owns Microsoft, and his friends are the engineers in his company. He is their boss despite the many times he failed. Being successful requires an attitude not necessarily scoring all the As. As a result, pursuing education is essential, yes, but people need to understand that it is not the key to success. The key lies in the skills, attitude, and sometimes the connections one builds.

Education is much concerned with the knowledge that one has rather than the skills that one possesses. That is why students are given exams to do. Most students then study for the exams and pass and then forget everything about what they studied that semester after exams. As a result, they end up having little knowledge and no skills, and that is the reason why there are very many A+ graduates in the world that cannot secure themselves a job (Dewey, 1986). Most of them are even stuck in places were what they are working on is not related to the course they did and graduated. As a result, it seems like all they were doing is wasting time in school reading for something that does not benefit any inch of their life. And that makes it that education is not the key to success.

Most of the people who go to school and graduate depend on being employed rather than creating jobs. Schools teach them on dependency rather than making the students learn on the crucial skills of excelling in life. That is the reason why the levels of unemployment are rising day in, day out. There is no fresh blood that thinks critically and wants to start a business to create employment chances for others. All graduates want to find an already existing job without realizing that the job market is flooded with people who have the same expectations and who have the same degrees or maybe more. The graduates lack skills like persistence, which will make them stand firm and keep trying like the people of the past did (Anderson, Hattie, & Hamilton, 2005). Instead, they all sit and wait to be called in for interviews in other people's companies because that is what school teaches them. 'Being employed and not being self-employed.' That shows that education is not the key to success because if it were, then most graduates would be earning billions of dollars rather than sitting and waiting to get jobs.

If knowledge is power and success, then the librarians would rule the world, but they don't. Instead, there is something else that is more correlated to success than education. In real life, millions of people who are holders of higher degrees make less during their career life than people who drop out of high school. Millions of people who do not finish school make considerable impacts in society and also large amounts of money than the degree holders who get employed in one job. Most of the people who graduate from college and luckily become successful is because they are motivated to do so, and not because they went to school. Most business owners are the wealthiest people in the world, and they are the people that everyone else associates with success. According to researches, education is not among the top five reasons that make business owners successful (La Pira, 2010). Instead, what makes them successful is being visionary or seeing the big picture, taking action, while others do researches that is, the speed of executing actions, having the spirit of never giving up, and being a lifelong learner where one learns from their mistakes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, education is essential to our lives. However, education is not the key to success. Success calls for more than just tones of knowledge. It requires skills, commitment, continuous learning, dedication, and perseverance. Having the right attitude and experience is very important. Learning to be entrepreneurs and not depending on entrepreneurs will also make us successful and will reduce unemployment levels.

References

Anderson, A., Hattie, J., & Hamilton, R. J. (2005). Locus of Control, SelfEfficacy, and Motivation in Different Schools: Is moderation the key to success?. Educational Psychology, 25(5), 517-535.

Dewey, J. (1986, September). Experience and education. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 241-252). Taylor & Francis Group.

La Pira, F. (2011). Entrepreneurial intuition, an empirical approach. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 6, 1.