The First Step on the Staircase
Shazia A. Ali
When I started my program in Medical Assisting, the advisor gave me
the list of academic core courses. I was not happy to see this list. But
when I started these courses, I realized they gave me so much knowledge
and taught me how to work hard for my education. If I had gone directly
to my professional education, I would have been immediately
overwhelmed. I want to suggest that the learning process should not end
until the last breath. Learning is not bound to an institution; people can
learn from their surroundings, other people, and even the flying birds.
We live in an era of technology. Everything is changing very rapidly.
In this whirlwind of change, today’s technological marvel is often
tomorrow’s junk. This technological revolution inevitably brings
increased human knowledge, which is changing the nature of education.
Elisa Parrett, a professor of English at Lake Washington Institute of
Technology, where I am a student, explains that as the breadth of human
knowledge expands, college majors have become increasingly specific
because there is only so much a single person can know. With this trend,
many people have begun to believe that general education requirements
are useless, a waste of time. They believe that the specialized knowledge
from their major is all they need. However, in my view, students who
believe that general education is a waste of time may be unaware of the
advantages of general knowledge. This is not a time for people to curb
their knowledge. It is a time to enhance and expand knowledge, and this
is easiest through general education. General education requirements
often include humanities courses, social science courses, English