About a month ago in class, we were assigned to read "Discourse 5. Knowledge, It's Own End" by John Henry Cardinal Newman. A brief summary of what John says in this essay is that the student does and can make whatever they want of the knowledge they receive. He states the idea of a university is different to everyone and basically says you get out of it what you want. Depending on what the student decides to major in, they will leave the college with that knowledge if that is what they want. I completely agree with what Newman is trying to say here. He thinks that colleges should provide a variety of opportunities so everyone can experience and take part in what they want to do. He believes in more of a liberal education. Because there are so many people in this world and so many different opinions and beliefs, he says that schools should offer a wide range of subjects and classes to take and I think for the most part schools do that. People should not be restricted to do what they want to do.
Newman also wishes that students would go to school for the sake of knowledge and not necessarily just for the degree and I don't really agree with this. Currently, I feel as if schools force every major to take classes that are not going to be useful later in life. I'm currently in Mechanical Engineering and I feel like the school forces me to take subjects and classes that don't pertain to engineering at all. Because of this, it demotivates me to pay attention to some of those classes because they are unimportant to me. I don't want to learn the knowledge presented in those classes because I'm not interested, I just want to be able to get my degree so I have to take some of those classes. I feel as if Newman wanted people to mainly focus on the knowledge, then schools shouldn't force students to take classes that are uninteresting to them. For students to want to learn the information brought up to them, they should be able to have a little more say in what classes they get to take or don't want to take.
Most people these days just care about the money. I would say most students think that what they are learning isn't that interesting to them but it's just something that wouldn't be incredibly boring. Most students just want to get out of college as quick as possible so they can get a job and start making money. Now there are some students who do really enjoy what they are doing and want to take their time and enjoy college. But if we're being real most people are in college just for the degree and not for the money. And the reason for that is because the schools force a lot of unnecessary classes in my opinion. I do agree with Newman when he says there should be variety in schools. But I don't think there will ever be a day where most students are in college for the learning rather than just to get a degree.
Ian Ransonet
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