Assigment #1: University studies

The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) reports in their 2007 EFA (Education for All) Global Monitoring Report that the numbers of students worldwide increased from 1999 to 2004 by 43% up to 131 million students worldwide. To 75%, this increase is based on developing countries, headed by China. Confronted with increasing school enrolments all over the world, we have to face the fact that there must exist universal valid but in some way furtive reasons for young adolescents to start a life at universities. Allison Stein Wellner, a former editor at American Demographics, hits the mark when stating that “children across the country are sharpening their pencils, loading up their backpacks, and sliding their legs under their pint-sized desks”. Why? Is it just a trend? Why am I studying at a university instead of entering directly into working life after school?

The online version of the German newspaper “Die Zeit” asks at present German students on its website to post their reasons to the topic “Why are You Studying?” (translated from German) to fathom 100 reasons why to study. The answers are manifold and sometimes curious, but the majority of the answers quoted are facing three topic-groups: ‘Success, Status & Money’, ‘Life Quality’ and ‘Self-Actualization & Personal Growth’. The most quoted reasons to become a student were (1) the chance of a more successful and faster occupational career, (2) the hopes of a higher income and consequently a higher living standard, (3) the access and opportunities to wider and more eclectic fields of occupations and last but not least (4) the possibility of opening one’s mind (professional and personal).

The results of this poll (held in Germany) are – needless to say – not automatically transferable to other countries and culture groups. In almost all countries, success is built on hard work (in nowadays mainly mental work), a good and profound education and the individual will for a lifelong learning. The disused myth of the rags-to-riches story, originated from the US, serves in these days only as motivator for less educated people or as a symbol. But hard work without education is no guaranteeing for personal success, due to the fact that there are worldwide only a few so called “self-made man/ millionaires”.

Most of my personal reasons to become a student can be found in the listing above. But over and above I choose the student status to get the opportunity to mature individually on a way only the few years as student can give me. We will never have the time in our live to go for six month or longer to foreign countries and experience the feeling and the sensation of being independent and free in all things we do. It is this freedom to live with only a limited amount of obligations and the possibility to go new and unfamiliar ways. In the end it is all about gaining wide experience or as one of my friends once said: “I’m a student, simply because I want to know MORE”.

Works cited:

Wellner, Allison S. Generation - School enrollment statistics - Statistical Data Included.
http://www.findarticles.com. (14 February 2007).

UNESCO. The 2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report: Strong Foundations – Early childhood, care and education. Paris: UNESO, 2006.