Meiland essay paragraph one

First, it can be true that a college education is useless since what you learn first year will have gone out of date by your third year. However, a student learns in college not only the facts which are the latest then, but also how to think about things and how to generate a new idea by himself. In ‘College Thinking’ Derek Bok, who is the president of Harvard states “every professor knows that much of the information conveyed in the classroom will soon be forgotten. The willingness to continue teaching rests on an act of faith that students will retain a useful conceptual framework, a helpful approach to the subject, a valuable method of analysis, or some other intangible residue of intellectual value.” And Meiland says “professors believe their courses to be worthwhile anyway because in courses students learn ways of thinking that stay with them even if they forget particular content. In order to learn how to think, you must think about something, about some particular content. But the content is not the main point. Much of the content that you are taught in college will be outmoded or discarded anyway in ten or twenty years. Learning intellectual skills and attitudes is far more important”. Therefore it is not important to learn the latest facts. And students will be able to know and create a new idea by himself even after his graduation from college.