College Education Geared Towards a Specific Career Essays

College Education Geared Towards a Specific Career Essays College Education Geared Towards a Specific Career Essay College Education Geared Towards a Specific Career Essay College Education Geared Towards a Specific Career Would you buy certain groceries just because the store says you need them in order to purchase your other items, when you know you will never eat them? Throughout life, phrases such as â€Å"do not spend money on things you do not need† and â€Å"money does not grow out of trees† are commonly heard, because the previous generation has hopes of teaching unknowledgeable not to spend money wastefully. It is interesting how even though someone can be taught something all their lives, when faced in the ultimate situation, they fail. College students spend thousands in loans, scholarships, and pocket money taking classes they do not need just to get enough credit hours to advance to the next grade level. College itself is an expensive investment, why spend extra money if it is not needed? Just like the example, it does not seem logical for the college community to spend money towards taking class that will not prepare them for the specific career they came to college to pursue. Being a college student is the opportunity for many to have their first experiences of the good, the bad, and the ugly in life. College life is a promotion of freedom, which is exerted by making one’s own decisions such as choosing their classes, times, and deciding whether they should attend or not. Just as in high school, there are courses that are deemed a necessity in order to graduate,the only difference is in high school one doesn’t pay for those classes. College board states that â€Å"Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $11,990. Whether it is one or six classes, the majority of students will never use the information acquired in those extraneous classes for their esteemed career. If the primary purpose of a college education was to prepare for a specific career, less money, time, and energy would be spent. Going to college and taking classes with the sole purpose of constructing a foundation for one’s career not only saves persona l money, but it boosts the economy. By eliminating the unnecessary classes, the overall cost of the college or university goes down. When the cost goes down, students save more money which turns into more money in personal savings accounts. The more money in personal savings accounts means the bank has more money to lend out to businesses. Businesses’ having more capital translates into more jobs. Having more jobs never hurt anyone, and nor will going to school with the primary intent to prepare for a career. America is known as a country of opportunity. People from all around the world strive to come to America and live the quintessential American dream. Although America may be the home of opportunity, it has its downfalls. America is set up in a manner in which an individual must have one of two situations to be considered successful, they must come from a wealthy family, or have a college education, and neither or those are a guarantee of success. The United States basks in glory because of their appearance to other countries when they should focus on following in the footsteps of one of its top competitors, China. China has an education system unto which all types of citizen have the possibility of succeeding. All Chinese citizens must attend school for a minimum of nine years. After the required schooling, students can decide whether to take an entrance exam to go on to what they call senior or mid-level schools, or if they are not the school type of person, they have the option of specializing in a particular area of work. While going on to the higher levels of schooling, the Chinese teach their students only what is required of their profession. When students specialize in the particular subject they wish without taking anything other than those classes, it can be analyzed by China’s past, and current success that they will always succeed. That is why China â€Å"[stands] as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world. † All in all, the United States needs to embrace their country of boundless opportunities and use college as a stepping stone to achieve the future successes of the world, rather than a meaningless form of spending money just to say they did. Works Cites CIA The World Factbook. Welcome to the CIA Web Site - Central Intelligence Agency. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. . College Costs Average College Tuition Cost. College Admissions SAT University College Search Tool. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. .

How Simone de Beauvoir Inspired Second Wave Feminism

How Simone de Beauvoir Inspired Second Wave Feminism â€Å"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.† - Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex Was Simone de Beauvoir a feminist? Her landmark book The Second Sex was one of the first inspirations to the activists of the Womens Liberation Movement, even before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique. However, Simone de Beauvoir did not at first define herself as a feminist. Liberation Through Socialist Struggle In The Second Sex, published in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir downplayed her association with feminism as she then knew it. Like many of her associates, she believed that socialist development and class struggle were needed to solve societys problems, not a womens movement. When 1960s feminists approached her, she did not rush to enthusiastically join their cause. As the resurgence and reinvention of feminism spread during the 1960s, Simone de Beauvoir noted that socialist development had not left women better off in the USSR or in China than they were in capitalist countries. Soviet women had jobs and government positions but were still unfailingly the ones attending to the housework and children at the end of the workday. This, she recognized, mirrored the problems being discussed by feminists in the United States about housewives and womens roles. The Need for a Womens Movement In a 1972 interview with Alice Schwarzer, Simone de Beauvoir declared that she really was a feminist. She called her rejection of a womens movement a shortcoming of The Second Sex. She also said the most important thing women can do in their lives is work, so they can be independent. Work was not perfect, nor was it a solution to all problems, but it was the first condition for womens independence, according to Simone de Beauvoir. She lived in France, but Simone de Beauvoir continued to read and examine the writings of prominent U.S. feminist theorists such as Shulamith Firestone and Kate Millett. Simone de Beauvoir also theorized that women could not be truly liberated until the system of patriarchal society itself was overthrown. Yes, women needed to be liberated individually, but they also needed to fight in solidarity with the political left and the working classes. Her ideas were compatible with the belief that the personal is political. No Separate Womens Nature Later in the 1970s, Simone de Beauvoir, as a feminist, was dismayed by the idea of a separate, mystical feminine nature, a New Age concept that seemed to be gaining popularity. Just as I do not believe that women are inferior to men by nature, nor do I believe that they are their natural superiors either.- Simone de Beauvoir, in 1976 In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir had famously stated, One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Women are different from men because of what they have been taught and socialized to do and be. It was dangerous, she said, to imagine an eternal feminine nature, in which women were more in touch with the earth and the cycles of the moon. According to Simone de Beauvoir, this was just another way for men to control women, by telling women they are better off in their cosmic, spiritual eternal feminine, kept away from mens knowledge and left without all the mens concerns like work, careers, and power. A Return to Enslavement The notion of a womans nature struck Simone de Beauvoir as further oppression. She called motherhood a way of turning women into slaves. It did not have to be that way, but it usually ended up that way in society precisely because women were told to concern themselves with their divine nature. They were forced to focus on motherhood and femininity instead of politics, technology or anything else outside of home and family. Given that one can hardly tell women that washing up saucepans is their divine mission, they are told that bringing up children is their divine mission.- Simone de Beauvoir, in 1982 This was a way of rendering women second-class citizens: the second sex. Transformation of Society The Womens Liberation Movement helped Simone de Beauvoir become more attuned to the day-to-day sexism women experienced. Yet, she did not think it was beneficial for women to refuse to do anything the mans way or refuse to take on qualities deemed masculine. Some radical feminist organizations rejected leadership hierarchy as a reflection of masculine authority and said no single person was in charge. Some feminist artists declared they could never truly create unless they were completely separate from male-dominated art. Simone de Beauvoir recognized that Womens Liberation had done some good, but she said feminists should not utterly reject being a part of the mans world, whether in organizational power or with their creative work. From Simone de Beauvoirs point of view, the work of feminism was to transform society and womens place in it. Read more of Alice Schwarzers interviews with Simone de Beauvoir in her book After the Second Sex: Conversations With Simone de Beauvoir, published by Pantheon Books in 1984.)