The author currently teaches at the University of Virginia, where he spends his time working on novels and other personal works such as papers and dissertations to further his career as his students go on and party. Or at least, so he says. In addition, the author has written several novels, one of which, "Why Teach? In Defense of A Real Education" correlates to some of the discussion in this essay. The memory of a discussion with his father, during which his father told him to pursue what he WANTED to do was the driving force in the creation of this essay. In fact, the entire essay had the same premise as said discussion. Edmundson wrote this essay about college; college life for students (and teachers for that matter) and what it is really like. He wanted to show his audience that college isn't about being the smartest, most hardworking student. He wanted to convince them that to succeed in college, life really, you must do what you love, not what everyone wants you to love. Without love, or passion really, you will not find the road easy, or the reward to be worth your while. (It's like in a movie that I love, one of the main characters says, "I'd rather do nothing and be happy than do something I know I don't love." Life lessons from romantic comedies everybody.)* Though the author's purpose is clear towards the beginning of the essay, it's quite murky from the third page on (until the end, which is quite full circle and cliché). After the discussion of the talk he had with his father, the author goes on several tangents. He discusses the lack of motivation that college students and teachers have and the thoughts of Freud, among many other distractions. If the author kept this essay short and stuck to the single point, his purpose would have been much better served. Though he meant to reach future college students, the juniors and seniors of the high school systems, the author's lack of focus made it hard to stay with him. In turn, those students, who usually lack patience, may give up on comprehending the material. The author also has a repetitive style to his work. It includes the use of several (too many!) lists. The lists are quite distracting and also lead audiences astray from the author's true purpose.
*Please Note: do not count for word count. Content was added to show personality, and give my last blog post some rhetorical flair of my own. (I quite like parenthesis in case you couldn't tell.)
Speaking of which, this moving picture GIF (hopefully? Technology is not a friend.) depicts Joy (the character) expressing what I believe to be the main purpose of this essay. The author, after all the tangents and unnecessary information, really just wanted to say this:
Thanks to http://weheartit.com/entry/63364429/via/EitiGrant
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