Philosophically, what is the point of "doing well" in school?

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<p>I thought I would start a thread open for an interesting discussion.</p>

<p>What is the point of doing well in school? I’m not talking about to make a living and get money.</p>

<p>Why is education the fundamental base of which we build humanity?</p>

<p>What is society’s goal? To simply choose a loosely justified direction and GO?</p>

<p>For me it is simple, engineering and making stuff is fun. Not much more direction than that. Although I am working on finding a deeper direction… Maybe to increase the scale of human consciousness to better understand the cosmos?</p>

<p>What is your motivation besides the obvious?</p>

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<p>Excellent question. When I compare my present neurotic self that is prone to a break-down at the sight of even a high B to my carefree middle-school years where I did not mind even a B-, I can notice that my quality of life was much higher.</p>

<p>Personally, to me this is more of a question of my own identity and intellect. I tend to have a negative view of capitalism and materialism, so I really do not care much about whether my salary will be 60k or 80k. Yet I believe in order to prove myself and fortify my identity, I must excel, I must succeed, I must rise. </p>

<p>So yeah, my motivation for grades are not only an intrinsic drive for learning, but I feel that society presses me to overachieve as a means of standing out.</p>

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<p>Why I try to overachieve: I see it as a challenge. I do not believe that grades show “true” understanding of a subject, but they do show effort, which can be just as important.</p>

<p>Philosophically: I do not believe that there is any point in life. I can go deeper in this and explain my reasons, but I’m not sure if anyone would be interested. It is a pretty depressing idea.</p>

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<p>Good question. An even more advanced question of this–why is it so expensive? I mean, obviously, there are folks out there who want to make some $$$, that<code>s for sure. So that</code>s why people pay for education. But some people could probably learn it all for free. So it<code>s funny we</code>re willing to pay >$200,000 on average for college tuition, when at some point all of that knowledge was free. But you won`t find someone willing to teach all that to you for free.

So never mind, just answered my own question. As to your original question (sidetracked there), I suppose its because its not so much as education, but innovation that`s the base of our society, and humanity. And to invent, and create things, we must be properly educated.</p>

<p>Personally, I do what I do because I love it. See, this is the difference between me and “others”. I<code>d never do engineering. Hate math. Great for you, it</code>s a great job, would love to do it if I was interested. But a lot of people (I<code>m not saying you) are good at it, but they don</code>t like it. But yet they do it because it earns them lots of money. </p>

<p>I love to write. I want to be a journalist. Which is easy enough to get a degree in, but the job market isn<code>t so great for them, not as many newspapers, that sort of thing. So I am potentially crazy for wanting that as my career. But I</code>m willing to take the risk, because I love it, and even though engineers can male >$80,000 easily, and journalists only make $50,000 (usually at best), I<code>ll still pick the $50,000. Personal satisfaction, and selfishness, when you come down to basics. I like journalism, I want to like what I do, not have a job that</code>ll keep me in chains.</p>

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<p>I don’t necessarily want to overachieve but to be able to cut it once out of university. And there’s a minimum to have in order to cut it in my chosen field.</p>

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<p>School is not an end in itself. You want to do well in school in order to equip you for whatever you do after. Not only do you need to learn facts, problem-solving skills, writing, etc., but you need to learn how to learn. If you’re in engineering, organize your class notes and SAVE them! You can’t find everything you need to know on the internet.</p>

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<p>This is the question I keep asking myself… though saying “the grade’s not everything” makes me feel good for about ten seconds, I sit down and work hard anyway. For average people like me all we can do is study…
How well you do in school is a pretty accurate measure of how much effort you can dedicate to a task. I just work to prove to myself I can take on anything the future’s gonna throw at me. Being an overachiever is nothing bad :)</p>