Why is Education the Key to Success

 Education  No Responses »
Nov 252011
 

What is Real Education?

Real education is the one which enables you to think for yourself and apply what you have learned. Purely knowing facts and being able to effectively remember and recall them isn’t being educated. To be educated is being able to make your own decisions and form your own opinions about things. It is the imparting of skills that enable you to succeed in any field of human endeavor and make your original contribution. What good education requires is a one-to-one interaction between a good teacher and student.

There are two factors of education which must mold two different aspects of the human psyche – one is analytical intelligence and the other is emotional intelligence. The former deals with the ability to solve technical problems while the latter deals with the ability to empathize, communicate, connect with our fellow human beings. A wholesome education system must educate both these facets of the human psyche to mold a character with all the abilities required to live a happy and successful life.

Why is Education the Key to Success?

Man is what his thoughts make him. Education provides direction to these thoughts. Success is more than just accumulation of material wealth. I believe that success is not a destination but a never ending journey in self exploration. It is unlocking your true potential to make your life itself a work of art. Success has more than one dimensions to it. Acquiring material wealth is not the only one. To what degree have you conquered your self and achieved liberation from wanting and needing things is another indicator of success. Education plays a large role in determining our potential for achieving this success. Here are some of the prime arguments supporting the idea of education as the veritable key to success.

High Educational Qualifications Provide Better Job Opportunities
Specialized knowledge gained through higher education opens opportunities in the form of well paying jobs, with a challenging work profile. While higher education may not guarantee success, it certainly puts you in a position to work with the best in the field and gain valuable experience, which helps you in the long term pursuit of professional success. So graduation through college and working hard to get through graduate school has its benefits.

Provides the Requisite Skill Set to Succeed
Education that enables individuals to succeed is not just the formal kind. The direct education that one gains through hands-on experience and working with the masters in a field, that goes beyond purely bookish knowledge, prepares you for success. Real education begins when you start applying what you learned through formal education to solve real world problems. The discipline, perseverance and ability to apply oneself pave the path to success.

Provides Access to the Vast Store of Human Knowledge
Just being able to read and write, provides you access to the vast store of human knowledge in the form of books, which is the combined wisdom of ages. A man benefits from the path shown by the great masters of any field by accessing this knowledge store. Distilling knowledge to gain wisdom is the ultimate aim of education. Great minds like Newton have acknowledged the contributions of their predecessors which contributed to their success. Standing on the shoulders of the great giants of men who made magnanimous contributions to human knowledge, we can see further than they did.

Education Through Experience Provides the Real Edge
A college degree or any kind of formal education can provide you with the knowledge required to succeed in your field. It does not ensure success unless you learn to apply what you learned and apply it effectively to find innovative solutions. Education provides you with the means, but the application required to succeed must come from within you. The edge that winners gain over their competitors is through experience and out of the box thinking.

Ultimately Success Is All About Self Belief
No institution can provide better education than life itself. Besides conventional education, the lessons we learn through our day-to-day life, our ability to adapt and self introspect, adoption of a strong value system and most importantly, self belief are the keys to success. The importance of education lies in its ability to forge a man of character.

The real key to success is self belief, which can unlock your inner potential. Education which puts you on the path of self discovery, leading to self belief, adds meaning to your life and provides you with the means to achieve lasting success in life. As rightly put by W.B.Yeats, education lights the inner fire and provides us with the ability to think independently, making success only a matter of time.

 Posted by at 4:49 am  Tagged with:

The Importance of Comprehensive Exams in Graduate Programs

 Education  No Responses »
Nov 202011
 

Comps or No Comps?

It seems logical to require comps exams for future PhDs and others studying for terminal degrees in the field of study. After all, a terminal degree ought to indicate that the individual is an expert in the field and has learned, if not all there is to know, at least a sufficient amount that further schooling would be impractical. A student who receives a PhD in history is, and ought to be, expected to know a very great deal about history. However, in the United States some academics hold the opinion that, in certain fields, comps exams should not be required.

Specialization

Increasingly, the academic world is characterized by intense specialization. Those who receive terminal degrees are often experts in a very, very small area of their field, rather than in the field as a whole. There are several complex reasons for this, and often the reasons differ from field to field. In some fields, especially in the sciences, specialization is necessary because it’s at the level of extreme specificity that the most important advances are made. In other fields, specialization is necessary to stand out from others who are competing for a very small number of job openings. Whatever the reason, some people think that specialization is important enough that graduate students should devote most of their time to it.

Do Comps Get in the Way?

Valuing specialization over a breadth of more general knowledge had led some people, especially academics, to conclude that comprehensive exams are unnecessary and even detrimental to students’ futures. For example, in the field of philosophy, there are far more new PhDs given each year than there are open academic positions. This means that getting a job at a university in a philosophy department is extremely competitive. In order to stand out from the crown, young philosophers need to publish articles in their areas of interest, attend conferences, and distinguish themselves in any other way that they possibly can. According to some, the intensive study and preparation required to take the comprehensive exams in philosophy prevent PhD students from devoting enough time to distinguishing themselves in the field.

The Value of Expertise

Although the arguments against comps are understandable, getting rid of comprehensive exams would be detrimental to the academic world. If graduate students are not required to learn as much as they can about their fields, they will be less prepared to teach others or to enter demanding jobs after they receive their degrees. Although they may excel as specialists, they will lack the flexibility, historical perspective, and big-picture view that higher education ought to impart. It might be argued that, if specializing works, then it must be a good thing. However, the value of advanced degrees can only go down if those who obtain them can no longer be considered experts. Institutions that grant terminal degrees to students who have not demonstrated, through comprehensive exams, that they are among the most knowledgeable individuals in the field, will lose their reputations as prestigious centers of learning.

 Posted by at 3:57 am  Tagged with: ,

Educational Malpractice

 Education  No Responses »
Nov 202011
 

Failed Educational Malpractice Lawsuits: Prominent Causes

Educational malpractice cases have always attracted debates from scholars and judicial stalwarts. It is a fact that in many cases, colleges and universities always had a stronghold in the cases due to reasons that are not very difficult to understand. There are plenty of reasons why the judiciary has discarded plaintiffs arguments in a majority of cases against educational institutions. The biggest limitation in announcing a punishment against educational institutions in malpractice cases is that courts don’t have an exact definition of what all constitutes the duties to educate a child. It is yet to decide, when should a child be deemed educated? Just because the child is unable to read or write with the expected level of proficiency at the end of educational year, makes the school or college responsible for it? Similarly, the reasons behind failure of a student to come up to an expected mark, after learning was imparted to him or her can’t be exactly stated. A child spends significant number of hours at home besides the school. What if the child didn’t diligently pursue his or her studies at home? Or what if the parents were careless in looking after the child and helping him at his work. It is a fact that good learning atmosphere is not only important at school but also at home. Moreover, every child is capable in his or her own unique ways. Not everyone has same aptitude, emotional, social, cultural and environmental upbringing. This effects performance in the academic career. Considering public schools, colleges or universities responsible for the poor performance of a student certainly raises several questions.

Educational Malpractice Suits

A large number of legal lawsuits have been filed against institutions on several charges. While not pointing out to exact cases and their complete details, here are some common reasons as to why parents, students and colleges or universities have been in the courtrooms.

  • A school sued parents for not paying the tuition fees and in return the parents sued the school on charges of racism, poor education practices and absenteeism of the school staff.
  • A group of students battled in court against their college administration for being unable to stop cheating and using unfair means by several students in the college exams.
  • Some cases have also been filed by students who passed high school but complained of having reading and writing skills at par with seventh grade students.
  • A child is misdiagnosed with a learning disability, is sent to a normal school and is unable to learn anything for many years. Parents sue the doctor and the school, both.
  • A student joined a college after winning athletic scholarships however, after completing four years of education, he feels incompetent in the employment world. Sues the college eventually.
  • Several cases also include stances where vocational training institutions have been sued because even after the complete training, students ended up with no employment.

The above examples of educational malpractice lawsuits, though don’t directly depict the exact cases, are just some incidents, where lawsuits have been filed against private and public educational institutions. It is a fact that many cases in educational malpractices have been rejected by courts due to the inability of the plaintiffs to prove in the court that the defendant was responsible for the loss occurred to plaintiffs. Nevertheless, in some cases, lawsuits have been won by plaintiffs and that has triggered hopes for many others who have been in the legal battle against institutions.

 Posted by at 3:48 am  Tagged with:
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