Educated People Within Our Society

¶ … educated people within our society have a moral obligation to pass their knowledge on to others. This is particularly true within our current social organization because, generally, the individuals who are able to obtain specialized and high level degrees are only able to do so through the investments of others; usually, their parents. Accordingly, most people who receive undergraduate degrees or higher owe their achievements to those that came before them. In other words, achievement in today's society is not strongly related to intelligence, or ability, or innate personal economic marketability; instead, there is an extraordinarily high level of luck involved in who succeeds in finding employment in a profitable or enjoyable career, and who is left with an education that relegates them to social positions that might be undesirable. Consequently, for those of us lucky enough to be positioned such that we can receive degrees and can take our own educations as far as we wish, it becomes a personal obligation -- rather than a social one -- to do as much as possible to give our knowledge freely to those who would like it. So, my personal quest for knowledge is tempered with the fact that I understand that whatever I learn during the course of my education should be passed-on free of charge -- if possible.

It is simply not enough to assume, as many college students do, that the education that I am receiving is somehow owed to me, or that I have somehow earned it through what I did in high school, or even that my parents earned it by succeeding in their careers. This is an extremely narrow-minded approach to the world. Although I did work hard in high school, I did receive very good grades, and I did receive an academic scholarship, this does not mean that there are not other potential students out there who are just as deserving of college as I am, did just as well in high school, but were not lucky enough to receive funding for their education. Overall, to look at getting into college as a sort of even competition is to overlook the severe advantages given to certain students. Doubtlessly, it is a competition, but it takes place on a playing field so skewed that the pride one feels for achievement should not surpass the humility felt for the knowledge that fate managed to be so kind.

As a result, with my arrival at college, I have a further obligation to exploit the resources that are available to me. College is not an all expense paid trip to partyland -- however much to the contrary it may seem at times -- it is the one brief chance we have to gain skills and knowledge useful to society and those around us. If I were to behave as if this were not the case, then I would be misusing and violating the trust afforded me by those willing to invest in my education. By being fortunate enough to now be in college, it would be to betray all of the forces that landed me here, if I to squander the brief time I have been given.