Is college good enough?

Is college good enough?

Now that I have discussed a couple common questions people have about college and the decision to attend I’m going to discuss a question I feel is the becoming a topic of debate more and more lately and that would be “is college good enough?” I personally believe that there is no clear answer to the question but I am going to argue the side that I see as more widely accepted.

           I am going to argue the fact that I think that college is ‘good enough’. I say this because I feel there are many benefits from attending college both academically and also in nonacademic skills you gain. People attend college for all kinds of different reasons whether it is truly to get and education, or to live the ‘college life’, or simply because they have nothing else to do with their life at the moment. I think that every single one of the people who attend will get out of college what they put into it and to me that is where college’s true value lies. If you’re the person who just wants to live the ‘college life’ and party every night then most likely your going to flunk out or drop out because you came in with no intensions to learn and grow. While on the other hand you have the student who attends because they want to truly become more educated and be able to better their future life, these students I believe will benefit fully from college in every aspect of it. Those are just two more common examples I see as a student but there are many others in between. In Kelsey Lucier’s article 10 reasons to get a college degree she makes points such as you simply will make more money in your lifetime, and that the ability to face adversity will be with you forever. To me both of these points would be all I need to know to say yes, college is good enough!

            To say the least though, not everyone sees monetary wealth as a good reason for a degree. A lot of people see college as a money pit rather than a good investment. I say this because the loans and debt you may cumulate over the years could end up being more than you make in your career. This is a tough argument to combat with because it is a valid point in many cases, but I feel like it goes back to the idea of you will get out of college what you put into it. If someone goes into school with the right intensions then most likely they will end up in a good paying career which could pay off the debt they cumulate. Also if someone is studious enough to want to go to college for the right reasons to better themselves then it is very likely that they were good high school students and can find ways to receive financial aid that will reduce the ensuing debt they'll face.
             
              With all of this said I still feel like college is something that should seriously be considered by everyone on a case by case basis. There is no one good answer for everyone debating if it's worth the time and money. Although some try to convince you that without a degree you can't be successful that is not true! there is a lot of people who succeed in many ways without having a bachelor's degree of any type.

            

Blog Post #3

Blog post #3

Austin Parker

What is college good for?

          This is the question that many people pondering the decision to attend college ask. Many people are simply raised with the expectation that they will g to college and others are raised in a way that they don’t see the importance of college. In both cases you will find yourself wondering why you need to attend college, and if its really worth it. In my opinion college is a fast track to getting into a career. If you decide to forgo college how will you know for certain that you’re equipped to go into the career that you desire? Not only do I think that it shows yourself if you can do the job the specific career requires I feel like it’s a major way that potential employers separate potential employees. This doesn’t mean that someone without the college education isn’t equally as ready to begin a certain career as someone who has gone through college, but as an employer your can’t know every applicant well enough to figure that out but when you see on a résumé that the applicant has completed college your first thought will most likely be that that person is more ready and more intelligent than another who didn’t attend college. As Louis Menand puts it in her article Live and Learn “Society needs a mechanism for sorting out its more intelligent members from its less intelligent ones, just as a track team needs a mechanism (such as a stopwatch) for sorting out the faster athletes from the slower ones. Society wants to identify intelligent people early on so that it can funnel them into careers that maximize their talents. It wants to get the most out of its human resources. College is a process that is sufficiently multifaceted and fine-grained to do this.” The way that Menand states that is very profound but I feel like it’s a spot on analogy for how society views college, it simply views college graduates as more intelligent.

            Another things that college does for you is it prepares you for the ‘real world’ socially. While your in college you will have to work with people you may not particularly like and you will have to learn to get along with them in order to complete a task at hand. This skill alone is valuable enough to attend college in my opinion. I say that because when you enter your desired career path you wont always see eye to eye with an associate, and you will most likely have disagreements with people that you need to help you complete a project by a deadline in order to feed your family. Professor Mike Rose is cited in the article Professor: Value of College extended beyond Paycheck stating the social benefits from attending college “There are also social benefits, he says: learning to think together, learning to attack problems together, learning how to disagree.” Rose is a professor who teaches an area of education at a public university and he even sees that college is beneficial beyond the obvious job opportunities.

            Although a college education can prepare you for many things there are also things that college cannot do for you. Bobby Fong says “A college may not always be able to anticipate what technical skills students will need ten years from now. Thirty percent of you will one day work in jobs that don't yet exist. Studies show that nationally, 60 percent of students graduate in majors different from those in which they began. Your generation will change careers seven times over a lifetime.” in his article Don’t Miss the College Forests for the Career Trees. Just like Fong says, there is a chance that one day you will be working outside of your degree area and really outside of your main area of knowledge but this doesn’t mean college has failed you. If you do face such a situation one thing that college has taught you is how to face an adverse situation and how to surpass it and succeed. Not only is college beneficial for your future career and job, it inadvertently prepares you in many more ways than that. In my opinion the non academic part of learning you get in college is the true value because it prepares you for many things life will throw at you.

Blog post #2: Why College?

Blog Post #2: Why College?

For this second blog post I am going to answer the question “why college?” For the longest time that question was a simple one for me, football. In my mind the only reason I would go to college was to further my playing career. This was my mind set up until my senior year when I started figuring out things I may want to do in life besides college football and all of them had one thing in common, I would need a college degree to really succeed. For me this was a realization because before I though college was a way to play football but then my mind switched to, football is a way I can go to college.
To this day that is still my way of thinking. I know its cliché but I really do believe in being a student and then an athlete, not the other way around. I say this because my playing career is very limited but I know that my college degree will last for the rest of my life. Yes, playing division one college football will open up a few opportunities in the future that I otherwise wouldn’t have open to me but the degree I earn will open up many more doors in life.
Unlike some athletes I don’t want to only be known for my on the field play. I want people to respect me as a person and in my mind that is more likely with a college degree. Also contrary to most other athletes I have no real desire to go pro in my sport. I have the desire to succeed in the business world and also succeed as a spouse and husband one day. To me that means that I must provide for my future family an to do that ill need a good job that pays well and in order for that I need more than a high school diploma!
Another benefit I believe you get from college is four or five years where you really get to learn about yourself and meet new people that you may not of known otherwise. These are people that can become lifelong friends. Everyone says that college is the best four years of your life, but in my opinion college is four years that can lead to you having the best life you possibly can if you take full advantage of the opportunity at hand.

All about me

All About Me:
Hey guys, my name is Austin Parker (as you already know) and I am from Atlanta, GA. This blog post is going to be me telling you about my life and the things important to me! Let me first start off by saying that the things I say in this post are MY beliefs and the things my life are based on. I completely understand that some may have opposing views on certain things and I respect that!
My life can be summarized by three simple words God, family, & friends with those being in order of importance to me. First thing is God, he is always #1! I openly claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior & my relationship with him is my biggest priority in life! Whether it is in relationships with friends or family, or when I step onto the field to play football, everything I do in life is to give him the glory! Next thing for me in life is my family. My family is my everything! They are the ones that have always been there for me no matter what! My parents are both major role models to me! I look up to them both in many ways and I pray that one day I will be just half of the parent that they have both been for me! I also have an older sister who is 21 years old. Although me and her fight and have our ups and downs I love her more than she will ever know and would take a bullet for her in a heartbeat! For me this last one, friends is pretty much the same as family. I say this because for me I have a group of close friends that have stuck by me through both thick & thin that I truly consider family. I even have their initials tattooed on my right arm around a star. Well eight of the eleven are tattooed on my arm and the other three, who are probably the friends that I have been closest with for the longest are all girls and I'm still in the process of drawing up a tattoo with their initials to get done. 
Now that you know the three major things in my life I feel like there are still a few other things that I need to share in order to tell "All About Me". One of those things if it wasn't already known would be that I play football here at JSU and have been playing the sport for the past twelve years. I love everything about the game and if I'm not in class I am most likely training or practicing. Another thing you should probably know about me is that I am a bit obsessed with clothing and sneakers! I know, I know everyone says that sounds like a girl thing to say and in most cases it most likely is, but I cannot help the fact that I have a passion for both. If you looked in my closet here at JSU you would see about 20 shoe boxes that are either Nikes, Jordans, Converse or Adidas & that is not even half of my shoe collection, it is only the shoes that would fit in my closet here. Also if you looked into my closet you'd see a lot of t-shirts, some of which i designed personally and got made for myself. I aspire to one day have my own faith-based urban clothing line. 
Since basically all of you haven't ever had a conversation with me therefore you dont know my personality so I figured I'd explain it just a little bit. To most at first I seem rude or stand offish which I understand because I am not outgoing and will almost never speak to someone first unless it is in a situation that it's needed, but i assure you I do not have bad intentions by it. You may wonder why I am that way and honestly the reason I dont speak to people first is because in my mind if you dont speak to me first then you must not have any interest in speaking to me and therefore I don't want to bother or annoy you by trying. I do understand in many cases this is not true but it is just how my mind works. If you ever want to talk to me for whatever reason I am not hard to carry a conversation with if I am approached and really do enjoy meeting and talking to people, so please be my guest and talk to me sometime! I promise I'm not the same way I may come off to be at first! 
Also one last thing about myself that i feel compelled to share is that I love tattoos. I personally have 8 pieces of work on myself at the moment and will probably get more. I think tattoos are a unique way to express yourself and your beliefs! If I couldn't speak to describe myself, you could simply look at all of my tattoos and almost completely understand what I am about! 
In closing out this blog post I am going to post a few pictures that show some of the things I am about and things that I love so that you may further understand who I am! 

Above is me spending time at a local elementary school while on an international mission trip last spring.

Above: This is my favorite picture ever! This is a real street sign on the island of Eluethra in the Caribbean where I went on a mission trip. 

This is another picture of me with the kids while on an international mission trip with my church.

This is a collage of football pictures. top left is me in 8th grade after winning the championship, bottom left is me my senior year in high school, and on the right is me when I put on my uniform here at JSU for the first time!  

This is a picture of me dancing with my mom at my senior football banquet. I am proud to admit that I am a Momma's Boy!

This is my family, these three people are my everything! I don't know where I'd be without them!

Last but not least this is me and my boy Joe Jones after he scored a touchdown our senior year! Joe and his twin brother Jon are two of my closest friends and their family is truly a second family to me! I would do anything for them!

Well I hope you enjoyed learning about my life and hopefully I didn't bore you to death while reading this! I hope to get to know each and everyone of you as the semester goes on! Please feel free to go and add me or follow me on any of the social networks.

Twitter: austin_parker76

Instagram: austin_parker76

Facebook: Click here to go to my facebook page!