Older Soul, I'm so Much Younger Now.

¶ … older soul, I'm so much younger now. It's interesting that by participating in the local academia environment (even in the business realm) some of my fundamental beliefs are challenged, though still not overthrown. Learning to actively engage those around me via the written word, has opened my eyes, ears and mind to the understanding that everyone (including professors and instructors) have their own personal agenda to espouse.

Understanding that one thought has helped me understand my own agenda; that is to pass this course (along with all my other courses) receive my degree and enter the workforce as a more rounded (some might even call it jaded) comprehension of how academia and the business world differs. An example of those differences can be found in my earlier writings; words first written to appease the mighty academic machine now sound foolishly arrogant in retrospect.

For example; in one of my first attempts at writing for this particular course, I penned the words "sustainability now has expanded to envelop a plethora of disciplines," I now laugh at my feeble attempts at sounding as if I know and understand how the business world really works.

My attempts, however, are not as if they were without purpose, instead I believe that I learned not only how to manipulate thoughts and words on the page, I also learned to constructively think through problems associated with different agendas, and to critically analyze the words of others.

Did I really believe that sustainability meant that there is currently a recognition of finite limits on human activity which forms the foundation for sustainability as I had stated in an earlier essay, or had I grown enough to understand that there is an agenda in society that desires business to limit its activities and will do anything to stop it? This course assisted me in coming to that understanding and furthered my knowledge of how students (and professors) strive to sound as if they also understand that desire, though they may not admit to it.

I also found that much of the centered discussions taking place, on the discussion boards, in the classrooms, and at student gatherings were somewhat pretentious, arrogant and at least a little bit naive. They were also filled with idealism and socialistic ideas that on the surface sound good when spouting off to ones friends and fellow students, but in retrospect are somewhat simplistic and displaying a lack of real world experience.

This is an understandable circumstance, since most of my fellow students are just as inexperienced in the business world as I am, and therefore we all tend to have a rather idealistic viewpoint of how the world should work. Whether it really works that way or not is yet to be discovered (at least by me).

What I did discover was that I could use the written word to set forth my ideals and thoughts, and also that I was capable of delivering those thoughts and perceptions in a sound and reasonable manner by analyzing exactly what it was I wished to present, and that I could do so in all seriousness and with devout justification by including other's written words as well. I discovered the process of making an argument by presenting other people's thoughts as agreeing or disagreeing with my own.

Learning this skill allowed my the luxury of espousing different ideas and justifying those ideas with the evidence produced by others who believed along the same lines as I. Critical thinking was replaced by evidence espoused as fact. One recent study confirmed my idealism by stating "if you believe in the quest for truth, you'll learn that truth is almost impossible to find" (Marill, 2006, p. 81).

I found that statement to be as true as any that I had read or heard, but at least I learned that I need to question every statement in order to determine the truth (or lack thereof). What really surprised me was that this course effected not only my writing for the course or my actions within the classroom environment, but that it also affected my actions, discussions, perceptions and writings outside the classroom environment.

No longer was I the old, wise student I was at the beginning of the course; instead, I was now so much younger, so much more open to the thoughts and beliefs of others. I learned to question and through that questioning learned even more. Via participation in and through research conducted for this course I learned that "students today have to write not only lecture notes and essays and.