Education plays a major role in everyone’s lives. Everyone needs it, but not everyone wants it. Those who seek it want a successful life and are chasing their careers. Those who reject education don’t know what they want to do with their life and don’t care. They most likely won’t have successful lives. Education has always been around and isn’t ever going away. It is a fundamental part of life. Education does not only build knowledge but also characteristics. A well educated person is confident in themselves and not afraid to speak their mind. Education is the factor that will determine how our lives turn out, but what is true education and when does it start?

  From the moment you learn to speak to the very end of high school you are constantly learning. This knowledge you obtain are the basics. Your time in grade school and high school is a type of education, but it is not true education. Now you may be saying that grade school and high school are a waste of time but they are not. They prepare you until you are ready for true education and help you seek it. Now you may think you have an idea of what you think I believe true education is. I’m sorry to break it to you but you’re wrong if you think I believe it’s college. College is not true education but it is a place to go to obtain it. When you go to college you choose a specific major you want as your career. You then study your major and practice what you are being taught. If you haven’t figured out what true education is at this point let me tell you. True education is experience. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” a group of prisoners see shadows and hear faint sounds. This is all they have known in their lives. Just shadows and sounds. When one prisoner is released he was shocked to believe everything was not just shadows. He finally knew what the shapes he saw were and what sounds they really made. He learned through experience. When he returned to the cave he explained to the other prisoners what he saw. They did not believe him and thought he was lying. This was due to the reason that all their life they only saw these shadows and heard these faint sounds. They could not obtain the knowledge he had because they did not experience it for themselves. The freed prisoner had experienced these things on his own so he was able to understand the shadows and sounds. If you are being spoon fed information like these prisoners were you are not getting a true education. You must actively engage and practice on your own to truly get a true education. When you go to college if you are not practicing what you are being taught you just have knowledge on the major not education. For example, I am majoring in architecture. In my architecture class not only am i just learning and getting knowledge in architecture, but i am also drawing plans of buildings getting experience to truly get an education on architecture. College isn’t the only way to obtain true education. There are many places you can go to get an education, and many ways you can educate yourself. Another place you can go to get true education is trade school. In trade school you learn a trade that will give you a career based on the trade. Just like college if you aren’t actively engaged and practicing what you are being taught you are not getting education, you are just obtaining knowledge. If you have noticed some jobs require you to have some sort of experience in the position you’re applying for. This is so the person hiring you knows you will be able to complete tasks the job requires because you are educated in the position and they can trust you to complete the task successfully. Let me ask you a question. Say you own your own company and you are hiring people for a specific position. Would you rather employ someone who has studied for 5 years and has knowledge on the position or someone who has worked the same position before for 5 years. The right decision would be to hire the person who has worked that position before because they have experience in it therefore they are educated in that position. You would be able to put more trust in them to complete their tasks properly and on time than someone who has studied the position and never actually completed tasks the position requires. You don’t always have to go to places like college to get a true education. You can even get it on your own. Look at the billionaires, millionaires and successful people of today. Some if not most have not gone to college. They didn’t need college to get to where they are because college was not necessary for them to get experience for their careers. Getting an education in college and getting it on your own may differ but what remains the same is experience. When you are getting an education on your own you practice what your career requires. You look at the works of those who are successful and try to recreate them or incorporate them on your own ideas. Through this you are getting experience and are being educated in the career you are aiming for.

  True education is not simply going to school and learning. True education is gaining knowledge and experience. When you experience something on your own you are more educated on it then if you were just taught it. When you experience something for education, you not only learn about it you understand it. For example, almost a year ago I got caught in the middle of a shooting. Before this I thought a person in this situation may feel scared, think they are going to get hurt or die, and have their life flash before their eyes. But only after experiencing it on my own I can fully understand how a person will feel and what they would think. They wouldn’t be thinking anything. Adrenalin will kick in making you unable to feel any emotions at the moment and the only thing happening is you are trying to get to cover or away from the area. Therefore this is why true education is experience.

 

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