To Be Educated

College is constantly being called "higher education." With harder tests, more reading, and challenging subjects, college has always been looked upon by adults as being something one must do to succeed. "You need to go to college to get a good job. You need to get an education."
But what is an education? Is it memorizing the process of the transcription of DNA or knowing all ten sections of a communication brief outline?
I had a class last semester. It was a "poetry workshop," where we sat around and wrote and read poems. Rarely did we have homework, and we never had any tests. Yet at the same time, I had learned more in that poetry class than I had in any other class I had had. How was I educated? Was it the teacher? Was it the class format?
This semester I have an advertising class, which I absolutely hate. My teacher gives us word definition upon word definition and makes us remember model after model, much like high school. But the thing is, I don't remember much from high school. What I do remember is what I made come alive to me, such as the history of the United States.
What my teacher this semester doesn't understand is that rote repetition and memory does not educate a person. I've often asked myself if I will actually apply the many facts and ideas that I have "learned" at college. Or will I just be hired because I showed enough hard work to make it through college and graduate with honors?
The longer I live, the more classes I take, and the more people I meet I come to realize that education is nothing but the resonance of a truth in my life.
As a child growing up, I can remember my parents making me do things and telling me things I just didn't get. Go to bed early, go help your father change the oil, save your money, etc. I rebelled against that advice not because I didn't want to be educated, but because I didn't see any truth in any of those things. Why should I save my money? Changing the oil in the car? I would rather go and play wiffleball with the neighbors. But now, a decade later, I find myself wishing I would have learned how to change the oil in the car. I wish I would have learned to save my money. But instead I chose to follow the desire of my youth. I didn't look for the truth in the education my parents were trying to give me.
The best advice I can give someone who is entering college is to not to look at class as something you have to go to and be bored for an hour, but look at it as an opportunity mature and learn, even if your teacher makes you memorize things. If you have a passion or an interest in something, make it your major. Pursue it, because learning about something you enjoy and finding the truth in it not only A) makes you happier, but B) makes life a lot easier. Remember that its easier to learn from someone else's mistakes than to learn from your own.