College Classes Expand the Mind

806 Words2 Pages

After my early 9:00 a.m. Philosophy recitation I headed towards the elevators to head back down to the first floor. I slowly drug my sleep-deprived body to the 10A bus that took me to my dormitory hall up the hill. Once I finally arrived at my room, I sat down at my desk to start on my schoolwork that would surely take hours to complete. Looking into my pages of notes, I started to question myself on why I am doing all of this repetitive, seemingly unnecessary work. My homework consisted of Calculus problems that required me to find the derivative of extremely long functions, and I realized I am not benefiting anything from completing these tedious equations. Some of the answers to the problems required a whole page to write the answer down. When will I ever need to do a mathematics problem that is a page long? I can see the advantage of having the skill to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, but is finding the derivative of a function really necessary? Even though I have an undeclared major, I have no desire in pursuing a mathematics career. Spending countless hours completing these endless equations simply do me no good besides earning me a good grade in the class. This concept of doing meaningless work is shown in many of my courses I am currently taking. Why do I need to take these pointless freshman classes that have nothing to do with my intended major or career? This idea led me to other thoughts about my cloudy future.

Since I am undecided about my major, it seems that I have all of the possibilities in the world to decide what I want to do with my life. I could be a doctor, a teacher, an engineer, a software programmer, or even own and operate my own business. All my life I have been told that I can be whatever I want...

... middle of paper ...

...ssibilities of having a successful career. The more security I obtain from gaining more and more selections to choose from, the less stress I have on myself that allows me to perform at a greater level. This mind set also allows me to open up to many new things, including all of the freshman courses I am required to take my first year in college.

Even though I know I will never see the derivative of (2x + 3tanx)⋅cos(x/sinx) ever again, solving the problem opens my mind and forces it to think. That is what I believe the purpose of the freshman courses is: to expand the mind to new things and to gain knowledge you would never have attempted to obtain. Proof of this belief is evident from reading this paper. My philosophy class (and T.A.) challenged me to think deeply about the knowledge I have gained and how I obtain this knowledge. The answer is to expand the mind.

More about College Classes Expand the Mind

Open Document