HAhahaa.. DUe to my laziness, business, lameness, and many many more.. I decided to post my take home essay.. Written by me... hehehe.. I thought the topic was quite interesting for students to know.. However, my essay kinda sucks.. So please don mind my usage of lame words, incorrect grammar, etc.
Take Home Essay: Is Knowledge The Most Important?
“I have covered the entire chapter on Newton’s laws. Go home and try to solve the problems that I have assigned to you,” said a Physics lecturer to his students. The solutions to the homework problems assigned by professors in college are usually not obvious and distinct from the example problems discussed in class. However, the governing laws and theories in homework assignments are the same as what is taught in class. The purpose of assigning problems that require students to use a slightly different approach is to let students tackle problems with some creativity of their own, and not just following the exact procedures taught in class. However, colleges are offering less experimenting freedom to students with their well-structured courses that the faculties believe would help students learn the most out of these courses and therefore I agree with both Thoreau and Cory that learning something is more than just gaining knowledge on the subject because of the significance of people in gaining the right attitudes and skills in problem solving and hands-on personal experience.
In the passage written by H.D. Thoreau, the author argues that hands-on experience is more important than studying a subject from afar. Thoreau asserts that people are only studying facts and knowledge that are proved by scientists, but not learning from any experiments on the subject by themselves. Similarly, in the passage written by William Cory, the author argues that skills and behaviors that people learned in school are more important than the knowledge gained from studying. Cory believes that the purpose of going to school is to learn certain skills and behaviors. The author lists a number of skills and attitudes, described as “art” and “habits” respectively in the passage, acquired in school. Finally, Cory asserts that the most important thing that people learn from school is the understanding of themselves, their goals and their abilities.
Both the passages have the same argument that learning something is more than just gaining knowledge on the subject. While Thoreau emphasizes on personal experience and experiments to learn any subject, Cory emphasizes on the skills and behaviors that people obtained from going to school.
What is the purpose of attending school or colleges? Most people would think that a person goes to school in order to gain knowledge that would offer him or her a better life in the future. However, that is not exactly true. The attitudes and skills that people gain from education are far more important than the knowledge on a certain subject as stated by Thoreau: “You go to a great school, not for knowledge so much as for arts and habits.” It is the way or process that we obtain knowledge that is more important than merely memorizing a certain fact. To further illustrate, memorizing a particular solution for a mathematical problem will not help a person to solve another similar problem that requires a slightly different approach. Therefore, a person needs to understand the procedures involved in solving a problem.
As a student of an English composition class, I am always required to read arguments written by different authors. If I were to simply memorize and write down the whole argument of an author as my own work, my argument would not be persuasive at all. Instead, I will be accused of plagiarism. The real purpose of reading other arguments by different authors is to learn the way to express our own ideas. However, knowledge can sometimes be important too. For example, without knowing Newton’s law of gravitation, the design of an aircraft will completely fail. Although knowledge can be important, it is far less significant than the skills and attitudes gained from the process of obtaining knowledge.
Next, personal experience. Personal experience is the knowledge that a person can gain by attempting certain actions or experiments. It gives people a different perspective and a better idea on a particular subject. Whether the attempt of proving something succeeds or fails, one will still gain experience from it. In fact, people remember their failed attempts better than their successful attempts. It is from these attempts that people learn that what works and what does not. Colleges today are offering very few opportunities for students in creating their own experiments. Being a senior in Mechanical Engineering in San Jose State University, I find that most if not all laboratory classes that I took have a step by step procedure in every experiment. Also, from my perspective as a student who minors in business, I understand that profit is the priority of any business. To generate greater amount of profits, reducing cost would be a sound plan. During financially troubled times like the economy crisis that is happening now, it is not unusual to see companies lay off their employees as a mean of reducing cost. As a business student, I would think that this act of reducing cost would be the most effective in reducing cost and therefore generates more profits. However, an experienced manager of a company would know that this act of retrenchment might reduce the confidence and loyalty of the employees toward the company. This scenario proves that personal experience can provide a person with a different perspective towards a certain subject and also the importance of gaining personal experience.
Although knowledge can be important in some circumstances, personal experience and the skills and attitudes gained from the process of obtaining knowledge are far more significant. Schools and colleges today should provide more freedom of experimenting in the syllabus of courses for their students as I believe it would help students to be more successful in their lives.
