Preview

I Beat The Odds Analysis

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1815 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
I Beat The Odds Analysis
Bucket lists and their supposition of compiling extravagant wants into a chromatic plastic cylinder, dreaming about what could be one day, is a subjectively asinine notion. Rather than laboring towards one categorical fantasy, any reverie is stored in hopes of being fulfilled some day. Though apparently a comprehensible concept, what is it truly teaching? Instead of working towards your goals with a steadfast focus, it is adequate to just propel them aside and have unrealistic expectations of them to simply transpire as they are wished upon. Back in reality, however, those soldiering on in hopes of achieving their goals work eminently rather than wishing on that shooting star. Oftentimes, the disturbing reality is that many children have grown up in a society where they expect everything to be served on a golden platter. …show more content…
This assemblage of data provided a partial explanation as to why college is such a rude awakening for many students. Until that threshold in life, many students have been pampered until the mere mention of work sends a message of premonition. That rude awakening, nonetheless, would be much preferred for children living in the circumstances of Michael Oher in I Beat the Odds. In their augmenting years, values of work and determination were deeply instilled. Not particularly those of schoolwork, unfortunately, because many had absent parents not too concerned with the upbringing of their children. Rather, life on the streets grew values of dedication to oneself and their intended destination in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Attending college can be intimidating, but it can be exciting also. In addition to the formal education a good school offers, it is also a time to learn some important life skills. It isn't always easy to strike a balance when you live...…

    • 451 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Marty Nemko’s article, “We Send Too Many Students to College,” he analyzes and questions whether college is truly worth the money. Marty “holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of education from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently taught there” (martynemko.com) as well as published five successful books. In addition to his novels, he previously was a columnist at San Francisco Chronical and The Atlantic Monthly, also a contributing editor at several other well-known companies. Nemko’s purpose is to convey the idea that, even though there may be reasons one would attend college, the complications overshadow the benefits. He adopts an impassionate tone in order to convince his adult audience to take a hard look at whether it is worthwhile for their children to attend college.…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Due to my uncanny similarity with the group of college students William Zinsser described in his essay “College Pressures,” his words induced within me feelings of guilt and regret. Throughout my years of schooling, there have been many occasions in which I have labored to a maximum which resulted in an almost unbearable amount of stress and panic. Oftentimes, I credited this anxiety to my teachers who assigned many projects and tests; or to the School Board that made continuous changes to the learning curriculum and expectations for “success.” At the beginning of his essay while he elaborated on his thesis, William Zinsser, master of Branford College, countered this thinking, “It is easy to look around for villains -- to blame colleges… the…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the years, college has shifted from a place of learning where individuals go to voluntarily learn more about a field of study that they want to pursue, to a place that young people feel like they are forced to go to land a job or impress their parents. Known author, Caroline Bird, argues that our generation is only attending college for reasons that are “entirely irrelevant to the course of studies for which college is supposedly organized.” Bird concludes that the new generation of college students only enrolls to impress their parents or have a good time away from home. I have come to the conclusion that Bird is correct in assuming that our generation is attending college for all the wrong reasons based on an overwhelming amount of…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Colleges Prepare People for Life by Charles Murray, it is argued that college prepares people for a job after graduation, but above a career, it prepares people to achieve a successful life. An excellent, satisfying job is only the beginning of the benefits that college may offer. Individuals because of college are faced with countless possibilities compared to those who never attend.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Larry Cuban, a former social studies high school teacher, superintendent, manages to compress the mantra that has been repeated for several of years with his article entitled, “Why Everyone Shouldn’t Go To College”. He accomplishes this by giving us countless of interesting facts about the reality of college and life. He argues that the annual college tuition seems to be extremely expensive, that may not worth the amount of money you’re paying.In addition, he makes note that college graduates working at manufacturing places that don’t need college diplomas, in order to complete their job. Furthermore, he makes clear that one might be a high school dropout or graduate of high school and can still be highly…

    • 117 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lee described how her child grew up and “graduated” on time (par. 14). In her motherly aspect, this is positive; however, kids grow to be mature at different rates and the further mature kids do have an easier time succeeding in college. The mature college kids do not think of college as a time to beige drink, oversleep, or drive recklessly as individuals may label the college experience (par 10).…

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Going to college is considered to be one of the most important parts of a person’s adult life. Lee focuses on this unnecessary pedestal that the college experience is put on. Kids treat it as an excuse to party and do not place the same level of importance on it as their parents do. Lee had this realization with her own son when she thought about how she was “paying $1,000 a week for this pleasure cruise” (52). This lead her to pull her son out of school until he was ready to go back and be serious or find a job to occupy his time more efficiently. Her son went on to have many different jobs. They were not the most glamorous, but taught him independence and how to be responsible with his own money. Lee argues that this life path got her son to a fulfilling place where he was enjoying what he was doing and had found a good job where a promotion was in his near future (2). This end result is typically why students go through college in the first place.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    College students today have become disengaged and it started back in 1995 when students started to gravitate more towards partying and watching TV, instead of studying and writing papers thinking that their professors would excuse it and give them a considerably good grade. More than ever today, that statement is true across various campuses- but it has grown worse throughout the past nineteen years. In this paper I will be discussing John Leo’s view about college students and comparing it to today’s students and then I will be discussing one characteristic that college students have involving disengagement in school. Back in 1987, college students took going to college as a blessing and with every class they had, they would work their hardest to get the grades needed to head…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My mother never went to college. Despite—or perhaps [because] of—her lack of collegiate experience, she was a powerful influence on my ever-present desire for academic distinction. For her children, anything besides “extraordinary” was simply not an option. The constant pressure meshed painfully well with America’s flawed education system, which—not unlike my well-intentioned mother—continually creates an unhealthy environment of apathy in the face of competition. For the duration of my traditional education, I made intense efforts for a false, unfulfilling concept of academic success. I sacrificed my emotional well-being again and again for fleeting validation from any surrounding adults, in a desperate lifelong attempt to prove my worth…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every year a class of high school seniors graduate and then begin their lives as adults. While the choices they made in high school are important, the choices they make after this will be of the utmost importance. A decision of how to start their lives as adults either joining the workforce, the armed forces, or attending college are the choices they have to make. A lot goes into which direction the student will steer his or her life. Pressures of going to college come from not only school teachers, but family, friends, and peers also. Teachers tell their students that college is the best way to go if they want to succeed in life, as many careers require further education beyond that of a high school diploma. Parents are always glad to see…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Persuasive Word Choice

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In America, college is perceived as one of the most important decisions you will make in your lifetime. Since elementary school, students are taught so that they can one day attend to a good college. However, the question is: is college the best option? Many would say that it is, including authors David Leonhardt of The New York Times and Freeman Hrabowski, author of "Colleges Prepare People for Life". Even though David Leonhardt and Freeman Hrabowski both address the idea that college is worth it in the long run, Leonhardt provides a further convincing argument by revealing where exactly college fits into our constantly growing society, using persuasive word choice, and constantly incorporating facts and statistics.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    College Education Flaws

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Delbanco argues that the purpose of college is to learn how to make decisions, challenge your views and expand your our knowledge of others to find yourself. A key claim that he points out is how American culture differentiates from this by extending their childhoods, he writes, “In America there has been an impulse to slow things down, to extend the time for second chances and defer the day when determinative choices must be made” (Delbanco 221). He supports his claim with this slippery slope of how young adults cannot make decisions due to society’s view that their childhood should be expanded. The premise is that true…

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    My whole life I have heard it said that going to college is a must to survive in the economy and live a successful life, but is that true? Recent events beg to differ as seen in a Newsweek article where they quoted a professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, Anthony Carnevale, saying college graduates make up almost “40 percent of the unemployed in the U.S.”. This example forms just one argument that I will use, along with the price that college demands for its services and its uselessness in fields of employment, to convince you that college isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.…

    • 1412 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Statement of Purpose

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I wasn’t terribly sure what I wanted to do with my life, nor did I have any idea how to get where I thought I wanted to be. My relative lack of passion wasn’t seen as a deterrent in my affluent Texas town, though, as it was a place where nearly all high school students went on to college—it was the only option we really considered or that was presented to us by our families, teachers, and counselors as a post-graduation plan. So I began the requisite search by looking first at nontraditional college environments, for while I had done reasonably well at my large and impersonal public high school, nor had I flourished either. It seemed to me that if I was going to spend the next four years of my life in school, I might as well try a different tactic than the one that had allowed me to coast rather unremarkably through high school.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays