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Jaime Lopez
Professor Kim
English 101
12/13/2014
Jesus Christ Without a Masters Degree
“Stay in school” and “Go to college.” These are two common phrases told to youth as a
form of supposed advice, for the youth to shape their desired future. Henry Ford, David Karp,
Dave Thomas, Richard Branson, Richard Schulze, Wolfgang Puck and Y.C. Wang are a few of
the many very successful people that never attended college. Some of these people didn’t even
complete high school, yet they are very content with their lives and their decisions for
discontinuing education. Education was nothing significant to these people. The difference
between these billionaires and the millions of people that finish their education is that those
millions of people aren’t billionaires. Education was nothing but a waste of time to them; while
they were attending school they could have been making money already. It doesn’t make sense
to get an education and go through the stress and hardships school puts you through, when one
can be much more successful not getting an education. I would much rather leave school and
make money right away but I remain in school for my parent’s happiness. The phrases “stay in
school” and “go to college” are not said by Tumblr owner David Karp, a dropout of Bronx High
School at the age of 15, or MGM Hotel and Casino founder Kirk Kerkorian, a middle school
dropout of 13 years old. Ironically, youth pay attention to the advice of others rather than these
successful billionaires and rely on an education in their lives. Education is not beneficial to one’s
future.
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The theme of education not being beneficial to one’s future is found in the article “The
Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie, when he describes the way
he, as a Native American student, was expected to act in school. “I fought with my classmates on
a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for
volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid (Alexie 17).” This
passage illustrates the harsh learning environment a Native American student endured when they
attempted to thrive in school. To put it another way, instead of gaining knowledge from school,
all that they received were restrictions when striving for an education. Teaching youth and
allowing them to strive for education seemed unimportant to those teaching and society as a
whole. The environment of a student was not worth the little benefits an education provided, and
definitely not worth the lack of any benefits towards their future. So rather than school watering
these growing flowers with knowledge, they placed them in a room deprived of sunlight in an
attempt to prevent any blossoming futures.
Not only is this theme found in Alexie’s experience, but it is also found in the article
“Graduation” by Maya Angelou as the author came to realization that her future would be
restricted even with an impressive education. “We were maids and farmers, handymen and
washerwomen, and anything higher than that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous
(Angelou 29).” Angelou explains how her future had been restricted significantly, no matter
how successful she was in getting an education, due to her racial background. In other words, no
matter how well an African-American had performed academically, they all resulted having the
same deplorable futures. So praying for a rainbow of a future was hopeless, even after the
depressing rain of education. Race is, and has always been, significant when attempting to gain
an education. Education in the first place should be to educate everyone, not only a race to cause
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them to be superior, yet this occurs so in the end, being foreign will drop your chances at
becoming successful in the future. Education is not what determines a successful future in this
case and in most other cases.
Besides Angelou’s example of racial background causing a hopeless future even with an
education, Gloria Anzaldúa clarifies why having a different culture also deprives students of a
fair future from education in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” “I and all Chicano students were
required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents (Anzaldúa 34).” This
passage argues that the education system spends extensive amount of time on something as little
as removing accents, which is, in turn, to benefit American society, not to benefit foreign
students with education. Ultimately, foreign students in the past didn’t become educated in
school, instead they fell victim to a vacuum that consumes foreign culture although this is not
what they claim their goal to be. Preparation for a desired future for students was not a priority to
those who educate; they took advantage of this opportunity for their own benefit. Education isn’t
even necessary to become successful in the future. Anyway, these foreign students had a
disadvantage for their future to begin with, since they didn’t share similar culture. Education
isn’t beneficial to them; what they needed was an intelligent mind at birth rather than a corrupt
educational system to “lead” them to an admirable future.
Malcolm X, a civil rights activist, proved that an education is not necessary to become
successful in life through his passage “Learning to Read,” even in his situation of being an
African-American during the racism sinking America during the mid-20th century. “Many who
today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will
think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade (X 257).” This passage suggests that an
education isn’t the key to gaining knowledge or brilliance. That is, when we compare someone
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who receives some form of education with someone who never was educated, it is difficult to
decipher which one was educated. Fishing for a successful future is better when people begin
early, not when they squander their time in school trying to receive a meaningless education.
Malcolm X dealt with troubles all his life due to his racial background, and he still managed to
become successful without an education. He is not the only person in the world that skipped the
pointless education to begin constructing his life early on. X is especially not the only successful
person who fell into a successful future with a harsh and a life full of disadvantages. Education
causes more emotional harm than benefit one’s future.
An example of education causing excessive emotional damage is illustrated in the article
“The Fourth of July” by Audre Lorde as she writes about her sister’s troubles with the
community of White students, even as she tried to receive a fair education. “I learned later that
Phyllis’s high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back
her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis,
would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis ‘would not be happy,’ meaning, Daddy explained to
her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. ‘We will take you to Washington,
ourselves,’ my father had avowed, ‘and not just for an overnight in some measly fleabag hotel.’
(Lorde 240).” This passage asserts that an education brought upon more emotional damage to
African-American youth through racism than it did opportunities for their future. As a result,
African-American students gained knowledge on society’s racism more than anything else. They
were drowned in emotional harm and got nothing out of it since their education meant little to
them in the future, since they weren’t White to begin with. Having a different background is the
main key to getting restricted on opportunities for one’s desired future, especially when
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education is society’s opportunity to create obstructions to these students of different
backgrounds.
In the article “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” by Richard Rodriguez, the author
reveals the restrictions presented by an education through not speaking the same language as
everyone else. “Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great
deal by not being taught in the family’s language. (Rodriguez 313).” In this passage, Rodriguez
argues that society makes the education system pay little attention to the background of the
students, even if it is an obvious benefit to the students. In this case, education to foreign youth
was a depletion of time as it is because those students didn’t even understand what was being
taught, yet those who taught them didn’t care. The future of a student was, and still is, not
significant to the system of education. Going to school meant learning that education was not for
the benefits of the students, but for the educators that cared about making every foreign family
abandon every culture to adopt the culture of American society.
In the article “American Education is Leaving our Youth with a Debt Sentence,” by
authors Astra Taylor and Hannah Appel, they explain the difficulties presented by an education
that makes any benefit not worth the difference it makes on one’s future. “Over the last three
decades, the price of a year of college has increased by more than 1,200 percent. In the past,
American higher education has always been associated with upward mobility, but with student
loan debt quadrupling between 2003 and 2013, it’s time to ask whether education alone can
really move people up the class ladder. This is a question of obvious relevance for low-income
students and students of color (The Nation).” This passage reveals that education costs alone
have been causing more debt to students, which troubles them more than it helps their futures. As
a result, students become better off not going through a costly education when all that they
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receive after is a mouth-full of debt and no careers or jobs that hire due to the lack of jobs
available in the present-day. Youth can shape better futures if they ditch the relentless education
system and begin working on their futures early on. This will allow not only better preparation
due to extensive time they can set to a certain future, but also they will not have to misapply their
time to irrelevant tasks such as subjects taught that aren’t needed in one’s life. It is foolish to
spend so much time and money on a useless education, especially when one can already be
creating their actual lives.
Education is not necessary whatsoever to shape a desired future. Society uses education
to determine who will be receiving the better careers, yet those who can’t strive with an
education but are in unfortunate situations in life are stuck with the inferior futures. In all, we
live in a cycle that never stops, unless one becomes like Bill Gates, in which we are able to climb
the social ladder far beyond expected. As we all know, he did so without graduating from
college, and this is probably the best decision he has made in his entire life. If we attempts to
invest on an education, we will probably see more debt than we would be able to pay off. So
those of us stuck in the lower social class can’t pay for an excellent education, those of us in the
middle class will probably obtain a decent education and those in the upper class will more than
likely receive the best education. Therefore, there is no light shining on our futures if we invest
on an education; our social status will most likely remain stable unless we, as did the extremely
successful Bill Gates, create our futures based off of what we are truly capable of, not what a
school determines we are capable of. Getting an education is definitely not the answer to
obtaining a desired future; an education is not valuable when creating our futures.
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Bibliography
Alexie, Sherman. "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me" 50 Essays: A Portable
Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. 17-21. Print.
Angelou, Maya. "Graduation" 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2007. 29-33. Print.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. 34-39. Print.
X, Malcolm. “Learning to Read” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2007. 257-261. Print.
Lorde, Audre. “The Fourth of July” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. 240-247. Print.
Rodriguez, Richard. “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology.
3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. 313-324. Print.
Taylor, Astra, and Hannah Appel. "American Education Is Leaving Our Youth With a Debt
Sentence." American Education Is Leaving Our Youth With a Debt Sentence. The Nation,
22 Sept. 2014. Web.
Nisen, Max, and Vivian Giang. "These 19 Insanely Successful College Dropouts Prove You
Don't Need A Degree." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 03 Sept. 2013. Web.
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Dear Mr. Kim,
This writing assignment was very stressful and challenging at the same time, yet I appreciate this
assignment because I understand that this is preparation, ironically, for a future college
assignment. My thoughts on education being unbeneficial to one wasn’t really a topic I imagined
to be arguable. Yet, after placing myself in this position on this topic, I realized that maybe
education is not as marvelous as it may seem to be. I found a new way to think about this subject
by analyzing articles revolving around education, which then allowed me to create an idea that
they all can be incorporated into. I think this is important for my audience because society
believes education is priority is building one’s future, yet education is also a costly factor that is
discriminating and favorable to some populations. My sources were the core of my essay, since
they were the columns of my Greek building of an essay. The sources were what allowed me to
construct my thesis and my essay as an outcome. They allowed me to keep my boundaries on my
topic of education not being beneficial to one’s future, yet allowed me to expand in some areas
that needed more emphasis due to being stronger arguments. I appreciate this assignment as
preparation for the future.
Sincerely,
Jaime Lopez