Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Article Response 7- Dave Barry, College


This article written by Dave Barry is quite comical. The article provided some relief from the stress in preparing for college. All seniors ever hear about is how difficult and different college is going to be. We are told that we won’t have a social life, sleep is optional, and we will be lucky if we make it through. Dave Barry made college seem like it is important, but at the same time it is a fluke. 

He explains that classes like mathematics and science are not what you should major in because there is always one, specified answer. If you don’t calculate that answer, then you’re wrong. This is why Dave Barry says you should major in English, sociology, and psychology because they are “subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts.” I think this definitely has some truth to it, but there comes a time when that will no longer work.  Although, this article was just silly and eased the pain of thinking about college. 
Dave Barry is also spot on when he talks about how much memorizing we do to complete an assignment or pass a test. This happens quite a bit in high school and it can be very sad. The fact that we just learn information to pass a single test and then forget it within a matter of days. It is amazing how we never actually want to learn our material, just memorize it and you can pass. I am guilty of this as well, especially being a senior, but I am trying to quit because it is important for us to care about what we are learning. Just because you pass a test, does not mean that you have succeeded. Success comes when the knowledge is learned, not just memorized, and then applied.