Free Custom «Life Experience» Essay Paper

I have been brought up in a family that regards and upholds education with the greatest respect. The highest that someone can ever accord to an idea or a person. There is an ideology in the family that each and every person has to go through college before he or she is allowed to make his or her own decisions. Coming from such a family, I knew from the start that school was an obligation and not an option. This meant that most of my time would be spent studying because going to school was not only enough for my family, they wanted each person to take his studies seriously and pass in the grades, good results would set you free, they said. Anyone who failed had some explanations to do. My parents ensured that each child knew his desires and what he would want to be later in life, the career that each of us the siblings would undertake was left in our hands, no one would intervene and decide for you what you would be in life and the path you were to follow. This meant that we had to do some soul searching because once we had made a decision; we would be given the support necessary to ensure that the goals we had set for ourselves would be achieved with the least or no hiccups at all. Changing and deciding to take a different career was not advisable since a lot would have been spent on molding you into what you were to become from a young age.

 

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All was well till I came a cross this teacher in my junior high. Since when I was young, my anticipation was to become a manager, a CEO to be precise, I always got fascinated with the way CEOs carried themselves and the driving force they had in them. Knowing the force to save lives and improve the health conditions of mankind was their major goal, I envied the chief executives and I promised my self that before I joined my ancestors and forefathers I had to be one of the most prominent chief executive for a specific well to do firm. Thank to my parents they had a friend who was a manager whom I would accompany in a number of times to the his work place and spend a few times with him to see how he conducted his daily activities. I was even ready to defer from my studies if someone would give me an opportunity to work and run from him. But I knew that the road into becoming a renowned manager was a rough one, it needed determination, patience and hard-work. As indicated earlier, everything was flowing smoothly and all those close to me knew that I had to achieve my goal in one way or the other.

In my junior high, I attended a certain school symposium that was held in our state and all the students were requested to attend because it would shed some light on them. We had a number of professionals from almost all fields and walks of life and they took most of their time explaining what their careers involved and the number of challenges they are faced with daily. One of the professionals in the symposium was the GE CEO. The first thing that came into me after my experience with him was to be like him. I was entrenched by the life history of this CEO and the difficulties he had to undergo before he could finally succeed. Without the trust his family and friends had in him, he could not have reached where he was. Joining the high school that I joined was the greatest mistake I ever did in my life which I believe will haunt me to my grave. My junior high despite it being a well performing school, we lacked counseling sessions, and we had no one to run to when we needed guidance, especially guidance that is related to career choice. Similarly, the environment we were presented with was not favorable; emphasis was put on science subjects while the art based subjects were disregarded, they were considered feminine. This is an experience that made me doubt the curriculum we were using if the administration considered other subjects to be more powerful than others. Considering such a situation, I do not think it would be fair to put art based students and science based students together, some would be well equipped while others would have an inadequacy in materials and resources (Bartholomae & Petrosky 314). There is no logic to have two students from the same school and class treated differently due to their interests.

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In the symposium, I leant that my dream career was not a smooth ride after all; I never. I continued harboring this doubts without knowing the right person to seek solace from. The situation I found myself in can be related to that of a biology student and an English student who are brought under the same conditions without the teacher keeping in mind the differences that exist, in terms of strengths, likes and interests. My tunnel was becoming longer and the light I was expecting to see at the end of this tunnel was becoming dimmer. It is like being presented with fact sheet to answer a number of questions without taking into consideration o f analyzing my environment and the results am expecting from this evaluation. This was the same fate eat the students in Percy present in his article.

There is a clear picture regarding the obstacles that Percy presents to attaining valuable education (Percy 47). From my experience, I believe that not all information is presented to the learners whenever they make major decisions like career choice. There is a tendency of presenting learners with only the positive side of a career or an item without presenting the negative side as well so as to allow him makes a balanced decision. We have encountered number of situations where children are even forced by their parents to undertake courses that they are never interested in. the results of such pressure are children who are withdrawn from the real world and who may in a number of instances be victims of depression. Bartholomae & Petrosky (39) have argued that there are a number of parents who want their children to be what they never managed to be. They assume that since they could not attain their ambitions, their children are the right "objects" to attain these goals on their behalf, a thing Percy considers misplaced and misleading.

Walker Percy's article, "The Loss Of The Creature" is a literature piece that tries to bring to our attention how it is difficult to try to inculcate ideas into a person who has already formulated packages and expectations in relation to the learning process especially if the learning process shall be as a result of an experience this person has undergone through in life. In the article, Percy begins by defining the term beautiful which as a matter of fact becomes the key point in the entire article. Next, a family of tourists is brought to our attention and a number of experiences they undergo through at the Grand Canyon. From the experience that they are encountered with, Percy wonders whether a sightseer should be right if they are given a proportion that is equivalent to value P or they should receive a millionth of P's value (Percy 1). In such a situation, P is termed to as the experience and the beauty gained from the episode. In the case of the tourists, these are people who accidentally stumbled across a Mexican village that was undisturbed and enjoyed their time and they longed for the time they would be joined by their ethnologist pal. Surprisingly, on their come back, they were caught up in a perplexing situation, loss of sovereignty. The reaction of the ethnologist towards the villagers was so archaic. The couples who had undergone a lot of trouble to bring their friend to this village found it a waste of time that was especially brought about by their differences (Percy 9).

In the second part of the essay, Percy explains how an islander from Falkland stumbles a cross a dead dogfish on the beach. Similarly, he gives an explanation of a Shakespeare sonnet student lacks the opportunity of absorbing such a literature article especially due to the influences that are set by the surroundings. In this case, Percy states that he two students are due to receive wrong messages especially due to their background i.e. one has biology background while the other is an English student who is only armed with a sonnet. In the two instances, the two are not aware of the experiences they may undergo which means that the dogfish may be handed to the English student while the sonnet is given to the biology student. In this situation, the best the students can do is try to learn and explore the different settings that have been provided to them and make the best of them as they can with the assumptions that there are no expectations or surroundings that have set higher goals for them. In brief, the article by Percy is very easy to comprehend because the facts and the real treasures are hidden from packaging (Percy 10).