Choice Of The Student

Choosing to Become a Student

There are many consequences involved in making the decision to become a student, as is made clear in Rodriguez's "The Achievement of Desire". Many times one must detach from the different activities that make he or she comfortable to have the time for learning. The friends and family activities that fill one's life will now become secondary to reading books and writing papers. As time comes to pass many of the things that were once loved are now replaced by a new love, a lust for knowledge. It becomes easy to remember how life was before the decision but much harder to return to that former state of mind. Necessarily, some sacrifices must be made to have continued success as a student. The sacrifices of detachment, lost time spent with family and friends, and changing loved activities all should be considered when making the choice to become a student.

The mental detachment from the time before you were a student is not always fully considered before choosing to become one. This detachment becomes very costly in terms of enjoyment and time. Only recently have I realized the price of becoming a student. As the balance between personal life and student life "Gradually, necessarily" (Rodriquez 566) becomes lost, the pupil "needs to spend more and more time studying, each night enclosing himself in the silence permitted and required by intense concentration. He takes his first step toward academic success, away from his family" (Rodriquez 566) and friends. Some of my sacrifices are subjective, but every student can think of something that they have loved and disregarded for a better grade or to learn something new. For me to pass on a snowboarding trip and study for an exam or to stay home on a Friday because of homework become apparent sacrifices to study. Of course, the first thought of being a student is that one will reserve a better job, make more money, and guarantee respect with the degree obtained from an institution of higher learning. Let me ask you, the prospective student. Have you really contemplated the life of a pupil? Have you thought about the time it takes to be a student? Have you considered the long hours of studying, sleepless nights, isolation of study, and the sacrifice of personal time? All part of student life. All factors in making the choice to become a student. The sacrifices become necessary steps toward academic success. Each individual makes the decision, and each person will be impacted differently by it.

As I sit here in a coffee shop located inside a Borders bookstore, I think of a phone call that I had received a little earlier in the day. On the other end, my brother who had wanted to visit my grandfather. We usually visit family together so my brother asked if I would have the time to accompany him for a few hours this evening. Knowing that I had a paper due the next day, I had to make a decision. On one hand I had my family and my grandfather whom I had not seen in weeks. On the other hand I had school and getting a better grade. Only pausing for a moment, I made the decision to continue studying and write the paper. A good example of the every day decisions that will lead to a productive learning environment. More often than not we all sacrifice without even knowing it. I have come to the realization that the friends and the family activities that once filled my life are now secondary to the books that I read and the papers that I write.

The many choices that will present themselves during formal education are sometimes not the easiest to decide, my friend. As time comes to pass, one will realize that many of the things that he or she once loved are now replaced by a new love a lust for knowledge. I'm not saying that family and friends must be abandoned, but some of the familiar closeness will be given up. The good times given up will begin to show the sort-of social ambiguity in the family. One becomes less expected at family functions or even with friends. This will lead the way to other social avenues. New friends perhaps. Rodriguez's scholarship boy gives up all ties with his family to focus on becoming like his teachers. His longing for the admiration that education can bring causes him to detach from his social world. "His story makes clear that education is a long, unglamorous, even demeaning process" (Rodriguez 578), yet he needs this to feel knowledgeable to attain respect. At the end of his academic road, he realizes the choice he made to pull away from his family led to a much more isolated social group. A road he may not have chosen if he had known the outcome before walking the path.

My purpose is not to be negative about the education process, only to elaborate on some of the sacrifices entailed. Education can be very intimidating at times and can also be exhilarating. It can lead you down different paths of creativity or cause a headache from concentrating too hard. Many times education can cause people to realize that they can do just about anything. The doors opened by education are vast and immeasurable. While involved in writing a paper or reading a book. Even while taking down notes in class, I feel empowered. Education as a tool is invaluable. Lessons learned through education are priceless but come at a cost. While looking back, the decision to pursue academic success may not be all we've expected. Rodriguez sums this up very pointedly, "I was able to frame the meaning of my academic success, its consequent price - the loss" (Rodriquez 564).

After all of his education, Rodriguez comes to find he enjoys the simpler life his parents live although he himself cannot return to a simpler state of mind. With his mind always analyzing their social interactions and intricacies, he has to learn to live with his education. Ironically, after longing to be different than his working-class parents and more like his teachers, he has come to the opposite conclusion later in his education. "He realizes what some Romantics also know when they praise the working class for the capacity for human closeness, qualities of passion and spontaneity, that the rest of us experience in like measure only in the earliest part of our youth" (566). They help to remind him of the person he once was. He is no longer ashamed of his parents but admires them more.

For every decision that is made in adult life there are consequences, sacrifices. Rodriquez, "Haunted by the knowledge that one chooses to become a student" (565), makes it apparent that he is aware of the decision, aware of the consequences involved, and aware of what he must do to succeed as a student. He understands his family ties may suffer and he is willing to give up that level of comfort for his formal education.