How can you view education as it is meant to be, and not a tool to get a degree?

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

Unfortunately, the true goal of education has shifted from being the means of learning to being a tool to get your grades and land a job. This has resulted in students in Israel, and other parts of the world looking at education as something that is overburdening and not something that can make them a better person. University cafeterias have become more like a place of unhappy students than a place of recreation and refreshment.

We have put together some solutions that will help you look at education as how it is meant to be – to help you grow personally and professionally.

To begin this transformation, ask yourself – What is the nature of your coursework?

Is your coursework entirely theoretical and confined to classroom lectures? Perhaps that is holding you back from enjoying your lessons. There are quite a few courses that do not have much scope for outdoor activities. But you can always have your own ways of making them better! If you are a student of history, all these years you must have aimlessly studied and memorised events. It’s definitely time to bring some changes.

Take a tour to The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, or the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv or start surfing the history channels aired on national television. You will slowly start connecting to the past. The endless civil wars and events of international importance will no longer remain matters that make room in your memory with difficulty. They will arouse the passion you never felt before. Architectures of different civilizations, art and culture of different era will start enticing you. You will slowly find yourself exploring events on your own accord. One visit to the Tower of David Museum and seeing how they use holograms and models to depict Jerusalem and the pressure of textbooks or course grades will be gone.

In a word, your coursework will not be sledgehammered into your mind, no matter how boring and stale it is. It will become a part of you.

Are you lagging behind?

Your days and nights of arduous effort may bring you the best grades. But is that all you ask for? Going forward if you do not end up with the best jobs in the market, it will surely make you look back and wonder what went wrong. Every time, you will get the obvious answer. While you were too busy earning the best grades, you completely neglected earning the best knowledge! This holds true for all students in the field of science and technology. If you are oblivious of what is happening in the world around you and seek textbook answers to every question, you are definitely not on the right track.

Being a student of Biological Sciences, you may have more knowledge about the harmful effects of cigarette smoking than anyone else. The 1000 pages textbook will surely educate you about liver cirrhosis and lung cancer. But what if you are missing out on how the DNA gets impacted over time due to cigarette smoking? Have a quick look at this article to get an answer right now.

As a student of technology, you should make yourself a part of the revolution in gadgets and technologies. A student of Wireless Communications, you can surely give a 2 hours talk on the importance of Radio Frequency Identification technology and how it can completely supplant the bar-code technology in future. But at the unexpected moment, the most threatening weapon can be hurled by one of your intelligent audiences. “Sir, how can you so strongly vouch for a technology that has so many loopholes?” It will be a complete embarrassment, if you do not know what “loopholes” in the RFID technology exist in the first place. Even if you are not a student of the relevant field, the present security threats to the RFID technology such as counterfeit tags and unauthorized tracking may interest you.

If you are a Master’s student pursuing a course in Entrepreneurship, you should allow yourself a full tilt at the course. The yardstick of a successful business is its mode of advertisement. To become one of the top entrepreneurs in future, you need to be thorough with the art of advertisement. Advertisement through mobile games, which has gained momentum in the recent years, is something that might pique your interest if you have the entrepreneur dream in you. Or read up on Guy Franklin, the Israeli entrepreneur who is popular for shaking up the stagnant real estate market.

Get the best guidance

The key to gaining in-depth knowledge in your subject matter is to make use of the best guidance available around you. Make sure that you rely only on authentic resources. Research papers published in international journals and articles published in authentic websites such as Huffingpost, BBC and a few more can give you insight into the subject matter.

Be the best professionals of tomorrow

Your life does not stop at your university. So try to make the best of your skills while you are still a student. Educate the world while you learn. The world can have the best professionals tomorrow if you make this small effort today!