Analysis Of Jack Meiland´s College Thinking: How To Get The Best Out Of College

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Why did all of a sudden beliefs become important in college? Beliefs are valuable to live life and are personal. However after reading a chapter from a book called College Thinking: How to Get the Best Out of College, by Jack Meiland, Meiland offered a variety of points discussing the importance of having reasoning to their beliefs and claims. His statements are agreeable for the reason that it is understandable as being a high school student. Meiland reveals that beliefs play a significant role when elaborating the differences between the idea that high school is the basis of authority and college is the basis of reasoning. The extra requirement of being able to critically think and give logic to support our beliefs are what separates high …show more content…
But it is felt that evidence is a reliable guide to the truth, and the more evidence we have, the more we are justified in believing what we do believe. (Meiland) Family, friends, and the environment we live in influences the majority of our beliefs because they are the people who introduce us to them. Although, we are not given the reason to why we should follow those beliefs. We are being taught to accept the facts in high school instead of learning how to justify them.
College is described as subversive but being challenged to think deeper and question an idea is not subversive. Subversive is threatening, punishing, and even firing teachers for wanting their students to learn how to collect evidence and support their belief so that they will be able to respond when someone tries to contradict their point. When this statement is found to be supported by good reasons, then it may be said to express a fact. ( Meiland ) In high school we cannot dispute a fact since it is required to be learned. For example, at times students question the historical dates such as 500 B.C. But they are not able to deny it for the reason that there is limited time to actually conduct a limited research. However, in college they are able to conduct sufficient and effective research to investigate their question which can be transformed into a
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Not only will they be knowledgeable but it will benefit them as well. You can defend your beliefs to other people, but also to yourself. ( Meiland ) Since they will be able to defend their beliefs to themselves, they will be able to stay true to the beliefs and not question whether their beliefs are irrational. Such as during an argument with someone he/she have chosen a position against someone and now they must support that position with evidence stating not one but many factors on how their position is the right choice.We hold that a belief that is supported by good reasons is more likely to be true than one that is not supported by good reasons. ( Meiland ) Students who are involved in debates take a lot of time to research and analyze information before the debate to have those strong reasons and evidence to win. But if they were to not study and were to go up against an opponent who has, he/she would for sure lose the

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