College's Role: Preparing for Life or Career? A Detailed Analysis

This assignment analyzes the debate on whether college should prepare students for life or a career, drawing on the perspectives of six graduates interviewed in Liz Dwyer's article, "Is College Worth the Money?" The assignment explores the viewpoints of the graduates, some of whom believe college is not worth the financial investment, while others emphasize its value in career development, societal preparation, and access to resources. The assignment also discusses whether the presentation of the data as separate interviews or a unified essay with a thesis statement would be more effective, examining the potential gains and losses of each approach. The author concludes that a unified essay would provide a clearer understanding of the methodology and facilitate further analysis, while acknowledging the loss of detailed individual perspectives. The assignment references articles by Westover and Dwyer to support its claims, highlighting the varied perspectives on the value and purpose of a college education in the context of career preparation and personal development.

RUNNING HEAD: SIGNIFICANCE OF COLLEGE
SIGNIFICANCE OF COLLEGE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Do you think that college should prepare you for life or career? Explain.
Whether the college should prepare a person for life or career will be discussed. College
can help a person to unlock career opportunities such as get a job, keep the job, and make
money. To become an independent person college can help you (Westover). College can guide a
person to explore the options. These are the positive aspects of college.
However, another perspective of college is after completing the graduation returning
home without getting a job. So it can be said that college is unable to prepare a career for the
student. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is even encouraging the students to drop out and
follow the idea of entrepreneurship instead of college. According to Peter Thiel, college is not
worth it. To analyse the worth of the college, six graduates from the class 2011 are interviewed.
By analysing the answer of the interview, the worth of college will be identified.
Among these interviewees, three persons believe that college is not worth the money. Life
or career of a person does not depend on the college. Sara Fletcher, the journalist, referred that
though helpful for a person to figure out the passion and gather skill yet the time and amount
students have to provide for these benefits are not justified (Dwyer). Leah Munson, the dentist,
referred that instead of the career, the college prepares the student for the society (Dwyer).
Ashwin Anandani, the Start-up guru, college is not worth of money as the student has to pay a
huge amount of money to learn how to prepare patterned documents and conduct standardized
tests. Alexis Valdex, the teacher, referred that college education is helpful for the student to
develop career and life by assuring a better future (Dwyer). Arnela Sulovic, the entrepreneur,
referred that college is worth of money. Life and career of a person can be improved by the
knowledge from the college. Student can learn new ideas and meet new people which can be

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beneficial for the student in career and future life. Beverly Ozowara, the lawyer, a college
education is worth for money (Dwyer). Besides the knowledge of specific things, students can
access valuable resources and connection through college.
So it can be said that college is worth the money. College can guide a person to build a
career and future life. The knowledge and experience, students get from college are valuable to
live in society.
This article was presented as six separate interviews. Would it have been
better if it were presented as a unified essay with a clear thesis statement?
What would have been gained and lost by this approach?
It will be better if these data were presented as a unified essay with a clear thesis
statement. It will be helpful to get a clear idea about the methodology, which is used to analyse
the answer of the interview. Pre-existing data and information regarding this scenario can be
analysed by using the thesis statement. To conduct further analysis regarding this issue it will be
helpful. The thesis statement can provide a clear idea about the topic of the unified essay.
However, the adverse aspect of the unified essay format is in this format the detailed information
of the interviewee cannot be provided.

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References:
Dwyer, Liz. "Is College Worth The Money? Reflections From Six Graduates Of The Class Of
2011". GOOD, 2011, https://www.good.is/articles/is-college-worth-the-money-reflections-
from-six-graduates-of-the-class-of-2011.
Westover, Tara. "Is College Merely Helping Those Who Need Help Least?". Nytimes.Com,
2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/books/review/the-years-that-matter-most-paul-
tough.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share.