Why am I doing this?

 6-26-15

As I sit an ponder what my next blog post should be, my mind races and goes no where simultaneously. Over the past few days I have been subjected to an intense inner struggle inside my mind. The basic argument that my brain can not reason is simple: Is all of this work worth it? Living in a society that literally has the world at its fingertips can lead you to thinking you can do, or learn, anything without the help of others. In the past when something would break you would pick up the phone book and call a repairman. Now, we instead search the vast realms of the internet in order to attain a way to do it ourselves. The same can be applied to education. I am a former Political Science turned Computer Science major with the dream of someday owning and operating an online news publication that will, hopefully, help educate the world and provide a place for people with similar ideas to come together and share. This was the same goal when I started college the first time studying Political Science with a focus in Middle Eastern Relations. Although many aspects of my life has changed since I first entered college, the same doubt still persists. Is this worth all of the effort that I am putting into it? The first couple of times attempting college I would succumb to the busy life that my current career as a cook would present me. Finding time to complete homework while running a kitchen is difficult and often seems discouraging. This time around I suffer at the hands of the same discouraging question, but the difference between now and then is I have a more definitive answer. Now I believe, almost certainly, that college is worth the effort that I am expending. This is not attributed to the lack of educational resources that modern technology has gifted us. In fact, I am even more certain than I was before that I could reach all of my education goals by attending free online courses that teach all the various levels of programming and coding. So wouldn't one draw the conclusion that it is ridiculous to be paying thousands of dollars to posses the same knowledge that one could attain on their own? On the outset this would seem very absurd, but when you dig deeper you find a very different answer. Maybe I have lost my teenage angst or have given in to the expectancies of life, but now, more than then, I feel that the classes I am taking will help me grow to be a better person than if I tried to go about on my own. College presents you with different view points inside of a classroom, or online, setting that cause you to experience thoughts that you might not have on your own. Not only that, but professors give you strict deadlines that may not seem very fruitful at four a.m during an all nighter, but will help shape you into an individual that possesses the ability to meet a challenge set before you. This skill will be very important at the next level when an employer sets deadlines that might be more demanding than an individual would set for themselves. Although, I am sure I will continue to go back and forth about whether this is really the best to go about educating myself in the 21st century. I am glad that I have reached a place where I am able to respect goals set before me and have the power to dig deep and accomplish them even when every part of my being wants to just give up. This strength is what will shape me into the entrepreneur that I hope to someday be.