On having a dialogue

I agree with your point here about standardized testing because I also took the standpoint that these sort of tests cannot measure intelligence. The thing about these tests is... they are considered "standardized" because in theory, they should be able to go across the field and measure a certain factor about all people, regardless of everything-social class, background, type of school. In this case, these test makers believe they are testing the intelligence of all students fairly, but they do not take many factors into account.

Many schools, across the United States, and even within one state, are very different from each other, in what they teach and what their students learn. Because of this huge gap in what students are learning in different school districts, there really is no way that any "standardized" test can take into account these differences and test all students evenly on anything. Especially not intelligence.

I have a question for you... what does intelligence really mean for you?

Hi James,

I see the same point as well. I believe that not only Bryn Mawr students, actually a lot of college students think that people can be successful without college degrees. When people explain why they think so, the most common statement is “Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are college dropouts but they are very successful.” I personally think that this is a very ideal-based thought. Steve Jobs is undeniably an extraordinary man by any standard. He has left his mark on no less than five industries and created a new age, making people all over the world be crazy about Apple. We consider the problem under a very general situation, but how many bill gates and Steve Jobbs do we have? For most common people who want to be successful, a college degree is necessary. It is true that a lot of college graduates cannot find jobs, but it isn’t a fault of college. Maybe they are not enough competitive employees, or maybe just because of the bad time. I still believe most people can gain something valuable from the four years of college, developing some great qualities that can make them become successful. 

I think that personal experience and the knowledge gained from books work well together and can even complement each other. For e.g in Health Science, we were taught about defense mechanisms e.g denial, i.e when an individual refuses to accept the reality of an unpleasant event or situation as a way of dealing with with it, you know coping with the shock. Experiencing or observing that personally can help you comprehend that topic better. For e.g in high school, some of my classmates who knew they had performed poorly on a test on receiving the script, simply tore it up without looking at the grade, while others just folded the paper and used it to play football like there was nothing on it.  Now if you can relate that experience to the initial topic of defense mechanisms, it breaks down the compound phrase, and makes  a permanent impression as that memory is saved not as a bunch of 7 sentences(definition) but as a picture image which sticks forever. You can explain it in your own words in an exam instead of struggling to cram it. What do you think?

KB, you make a really good point. For us to say college is not necessary to be successful is filled with bias because we are in college. I know that I'm in college because my definition of success and the definition my parents have of success requires me to go to college. Furthermore, if I had a different definition of success perhaps I would not have gone to college. Without a doubt I love learning however sociaty has influenced me because if all I wanted to do was learn I would take classes with no intentiion of getting a diploma. On a different note, I would be wary of saying that people like Bill Gates, who is a college drop out, is an example of the ability to be successful without college. An idea explicitly stated in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers is the fact that Bill Gates is not a typical example. His parents were very well off and because of that he was able to get his ten thousand hours of experience before he entered college. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to get ten thousand hours in a subject we are passionate about before we go to college. So, I would be careful of saying that the monetary "success"(which is still not everyones defintiion of success) of Bill Gates is easily accomplished without a college degree.