U know when u are in a lecture that is so boring that u start thinking of all the irrelevant stuff in the world, I presume that u all know of it, it happens to me all the time except this lecture on Monday of last week, I went to the lecture 3 minutes late which is the usual, Walked through the door heading to my destination, focusing on my seat in the last row in the classroom, sat down, implied the impression that I really care of what is the lecturer saying .. while in my head ..it’s noisy, filled with ideas … memories .. a lot of more interesting stuff or at least to me than what she/he is really saying.
It came to my head that in less than 3 months I will complete my degree and be an engineer, a person who really counts in the society, thinking back through all what I have learnt in these 5 years, I discovered that academically what I have learnt is too little for that long period of time, and not just that, what bugged me more is that I learnt most of these stuff/subjects all by my own through reading, or doing projects.
So technically I could have got this degree without signing in for a university, I could have got the books and read them and I would have been just as good as now or even better. Or maybe I can get Medicine books and study them and be as good as a Med graduate except that he will get a job coz he has a piece of paper written on it that the person holds a degree in .. whatever, which is the case for Med students or any other student in any major, they just memorize the books, the better you memorize them the higher the marks you get, the better job you get, the quicker you get married, the better you raise your children, thinking that this will make you live a happier life, which is nt necessarily true
It became embedded in us that the more you study the happier ur life will be, I don’t really know who started it coz it is embedded by the media and the society inside everyone of us, so u will find some parents giving their kids hard time for screwing up a quiz in the spring semester of their 5th grad, so it became a well known fact to him that if he didn’t do good at school he won’t be happy, and that lead to studying subjects that u can’t bear, cheating in exams deceiving himself b4 their parents, convinced that he did his part just alright.
This can be reflected In our own society now, you will c a lot of ppl almost everyone these days holds a degree, but he has no signs of education at all, education was formed in the first place to help human beings living a better life, a more civilized life, but if u took a glimpse of what is going on in the world you will find that we are just as barbarous as the cave man, we fight over anything, we have become tribes again.
I saw once in a lecture given by matthew taylor that “it has been a cliché that education is the most valuable resource in the global knowledge economy , it is just as important as fostering empathic capacity to achieving a world of citizens at peace with each other”.
The human brain is the most complicated thing on earth, it has endless powers, god gave it to us to utilize it and to think about everything not to just fill it with information, it is ok filling it with some information, but you have to use it as well, the scientists from b4 they didn’t go to school or anything, they reached the basis of all the sciences we have, just by utilizing their minds, who knows there might be a new science or a new philosophy, that you can discover and put the basis for it.
I read once but I can’t remember where, that there was a student that was just as me and you, he was sleeping in the physics lecture, and he woke up by the end of the lecture, he found that there is an unsolved equation written on the board as an assignment, he copied it down, went to the library to solve it but he couldn’t but he was so persistent and devoted that he will solve it, he kept researching for 2 weeks in all the resources available, until he managed to solve it, he went to his lecturer to tell him that even though this assignment was tough, he was able to solve it, It was a shock to both the lecturer and the student, coz the lecturer told him that these equations weren’t assignment or anything, they were Einstein’s equation that no one was able to prove them in history and he was just sharing them with the class, and that student, he won a noble prize for solving these equations, so if he was awake in the lecture and he knew that this equations were unsolvable he wouldn’t have tried and he wouldn’t have solved it.
Who knows how the world nw would have been like if Socrates was forced to join an engineering school, we would have lost a great philosopher, and what if Averroes (Ibn roshd) was forced to study economics we would have lost a great contributions in a very wide range of sciences and disciplines, I m not saying that we should study all this things, just pick the ones you like, even if it is silly or won’t make a living after.
For example I always made fun of those who studied fashion design, I thought that it is the least important thing in life, but I read a book there was this story of a king in the Arab world who was very wise, long story short, he paid millions of dollars to help a native who wanted to study fashion designing, that king helped him in achieving his dream and paid whatever, so when the king was asked u paid all this money for study of fashion designing you could have invested in the education of engineering or medicine or anything else, he replied that these other branches of sciences are very important but fashion designing is important as well, because you are wat u dress, no matter wat ppl say, investing millions to build the bridges between us and the western world is worth every penny, if you introduced the way u dress to the western culture it will be easier for them to perceive you and accept you, coz u will look to them familiar or one step closer at least.
It turned out that there is no such thing called least important discipline, if you looked at the developed countries you will find that they are offering all kinds of disciplines and they are funding them well enough, is that just a coincidence?.
I was actually about to post this article yesterday but I dunno why I delayed it, however today by coincidence I read an article by Richard Branson it was about Education as well, we all know that Richard Branson didn’t complete his studies but no one dares to call him uneducated or anything, coz that guy is a genius, anyways .. he was mentioning that education can be from different resources, u meet ppl u learn from them, u read u learn, u think u learn… but at the same time he said that studying at a university is important … but it is nt enough and I may quote from him” A diploma can be very useful, since it shows that you have gained the skills and other building blocks required to start your career. But obtaining a diploma is only a first step”
So All in all get a degree in whatever u like, and even if u don’t like it nw go with it .. but always educate ur self in the other disciplines u like u don’t have to hold a degree u can be just knowledgeable, a more interesting person .. and sure thing that whatever u learn will help u.
Sorry for taking so looonnngg .., I actually wanted to write more .. but I think this is enough. :D
And these are merely my thoughts .. I just got my brains in gear, u don’t have to agree with them.
Cheers
Ziad.
