‘Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?’ by Mark Edmundson

In this essay, an important question is asked. Edmundson discusses what real education is, and how one must fight to obtain it and retain it.

Here is an excerpt:

Your professors will give you some fine books to read, and they’ll probably help you understand them. What they won’t do, for reasons that perplex me, is to ask you if the books contain truths you could live your lives by. When you read Plato, you’ll probably learn about his metaphysics and his politics and his way of conceiving the soul. But no one will ask you if his ideas are good enough to believe in…That will be up to you. You must put the question of Plato to yourself.

This is especially relevant to students of the Core who may find themselves thinking something along the lines of “Wait…Why am I in college?”. Any thoughts on this matter can be shared in the ‘comments’ section below.

The full essay can be found here: http://bit.ly/SLGG75

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