English 110 Essay #1 The Value of a Formal Education

Riani Olea September 26, 2011

The value of a formal education is important in some ways and useless in other ways. Many of the successful people today didnt have what one would call the best education. Many admired people such as Maya Angelou went to schools with very low standards of education and yet they have accomplished great things. Although a formal education is useless on some aspects, and is not the only path to success, I believe that a formal education plays an important role on some aspects that we deal with throughout our lives such as social interactions, discipline, respect, and organization. To succeed in life does not mean receiving a formal education, it means doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal. Several highly respected people who have become extremely successful did not go to or finish high school or college. People such as Maya Angelou, Srinvasa Ramanujan, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Milton Hershey, Henry Ford, Michael Dell, Coco Chanel, Mary Kay Ash and many others have had tremendous accomplishments without a formal education. Srinvasa Ramanujan was a poor school dropout who didnt have enough money to buy notebooks in order to work out his math theorems, but went on to become one of the most famous and celebrated mathematicians of all time. Walt Disney dropped out of school when he was 16, but he has been the most influential animator, holds the record for the most awards and nominations, and the company has an annual revenue of 30 billion dollars. Bill Gates was a college dropout, but he started the largest computer software, Microsoft Corporation. He was ranked as the worlds richest person from 1995-2006. Receiving a formal education did not stop any of these people from achieving great things in their lives. This gives people a glimpse of the true value of education. I believe that people relate success with education. Many think that the higher the level of a formal education the smarter a person is or the more likely he or she is to accomplish great things. In the story Graduation by Maya Angelou, she explains her experience of her eight grade graduation. On her graduation day she was pampered, given presents and treated like royalty because people in her time looked at exceeding a formal education as an honor. They thought that graduation for Maya meant the she was intelligent and had made it as far as she was expected to go. But even though Maya did not continue school after eight grades she made it very far in life. Through people like Maya and many others we can deduct that a formal education is not as important as people make it to be. Some things do not help in the development of ones education, such as the interference of curiosity, the imprisonment in a classroom for hours a day, and what seems like endless studying for things that will be most likely forgotten after the quiz, test, or school year. As humans we have a curious nature. We want answers to the thongs that interest us. We want to be able to search, observe, and experiment in order to find out the outcomes and answers to certain things. Being trapped inside a classroom all day, learning about things that dont interest us and not being able to express ourselves diminish our curiosity. Doing exactly what is being told by

teachers and not looking outside the box are things that are not going to help us succeed in the way we want to, but how we were shown to by teachers. Even though a formal education has its unnecessary contributes it also has good ones. I think that a formal education today has its good affects on social interactions, discipline, respect and organization. Although we are stuck in classrooms all day I like the fact that in some high schools and mostly all colleges we change to different classes with different people of all ages. We interact socially with different types of people on different types of subjects. Our education grows intellectually and socially. Discipline, respect and organization are other factors that influence a persons education in a good way. With classroom rules and regulations we learn how to respect others. We learn discipline by doing what we are told and receiving some type of punishment of we dont, and we learn organization when we have deadlines for certain assignments. These are important qualities that we might not learn at home but receive at least some at school. So, in conclusion I believe that a formal education has its good and bad tributes. There is definitely a lot to work on in schools and colleges, but I aspire that in time these problems that schools face today towards education will better. I hope that in time people look at a formal education as an additive for success, not as the only way to it.