There is, without a doubt, a substantial section of the young adult population when poised with the common question ‘what is something you would like to achieve during your twenties’ that would respond with travel. The concept of taking a tour of parts of the world you have yet to see or experience is exhilarating as it is influential. Taking part in events like travel or other such activities that differ from what you would expect daily life to shape the person in innumerable ways, to create the base of who they are and will become in their future years. But for many, experiences like travel are not the only things that will take them where they will be later in life, and this is where book learning comes in. For a large chunk of the population, this learning will not stop at the high school level but instead will continue on to a post-secondary setting, where they will further extend their knowledge. The knowledge in question has a different benefit than the experiences, it will take you to the final place in life you wish to end up at, but has less of an impact on the person whom you become. The question at hand is not whether either is important, but instead which is the most significant. To find the answer, we must seek which of the two builds the mind and the soul, and we are left with experience as the most significant of the two, and here is why.
Experience is not solely travel based, even though that was used as an example above. Many community colleges and work placement organizations aim to teach by way of hands-on experience, and for many, this way of learning is far superior to others. This could include carpentry work, assisting within a classroom or volunteering within the doors of a hospital. By experiencing hands-on the ways in which these professions move and shift, what challenges can be found within the environment. By being present and active in the workplace you learn not just in concept, but by doing. In some circumstances hands-on training is preceded with book learning, a substantial amount of it to be truthful. Take teaching for instance, to become a teacher either in the elementary or secondary sector you must complete a Bachelor’s degree which is a four-year program, before continuing on to a two-year program where you spend half of your time in the classroom teaching and the other half learning. You could cut the program in half, only a one-year degree and send thousands of university certified teachers out into the world. However, those teachers would fail. They would find jobs and enter the classroom entirely unprepared to teach their students. Without the pre-existing personal knowledge of how students should be taught, how to teach properly and how a successful classroom functions we would have a system full of new teachers spinning in circles with confusion. There are however more experiences one can have, and not all of them take place within a career based setting.
You hear of people travelling the world, taking in the sites as they backpack throughout Europe during their gap year. But does this really impact upon them as they mature and grow beyond that experience? Yes, it does. An example: my father spent his early twenties going through the Naval Academy, an intense university experience that trains men and women to join the US Navy. Despite my and my mother’s lack of interest in the subject, my father packs just about every conversation with anecdotes from his time spent there and uses a seemingly endless supply of Navel terminology whenever the opportunity arrives. Those years however intense and extreme have stuck with him. The 47-year-old he is today relives the experiences he had, not the electrical engineering he studied. When you travel or live in residence, or find yourself lost in a new part of a city with a friend you are creating memories, memories that fuel you forward into the person you will be. Whether it’s while helping an African child to learn English that you discover your love of teaching or finding yourself in a situation that you need to show your leadership streak, experiences shape you as a person, or interests and personality. However not all experiences help you find joy, some are devastating and can take a toll on your mind and body heavily.
Not every memory can be filled with laughter and joy and thus there is a darker side to life There’s always going to be death, and sickness and pain. These experiences change your life, and can create a lasting mark that is significant for years to come, but are as vital as those that make your life bliss.