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Analysis Of Why We Re Here By Jorge Salles Diaz

678 Words3 Pages

In 1964, at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcolm X said “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” As a young college student, I often think about my future, some may say preemptively. Jorge Salles Diaz offers a perspective for current students who may be too focused on life after university in his essay, “Let’s be honest about why we’re here.” Diaz is currently a senior at Vanderbilt University. He describes himself as a ‘young intellectual eager to take the world by storm.’ From his LinkedIn profile, I can see that Diaz achieved a 4.0 GPA during several semesters at Vanderbilt. Diaz is currently working on research about propaganda and the principles, …show more content…

The language Diaz uses throughout this essay makes this very apparent. Diaz writes, “We come here with the idea that we want to be the best. We are only best if there are people beneath us.” He uses words like us, our, we when referring to elite university students. There is a clear in-group and out-group; those who aren’t ‘in’ are referred top as they, them, etc. “We want a top income, a top ranking and a top job.” There are two distinct groups Diaz mentions; winners and losers. I believe this classification strikes an emotional response in his readers. Those who believe they are losers, in this context, are those not particularly concerned with status and their place in the market. These are not the people Diaz is writing to. The winners, however, are those who strive to be the greatest. They know what they want and how they're going to get …show more content…

Pursuing a degree to work in your desired field is obviously rewarding. I believe Diaz is trying to get us to live in the moment. He says, “We should reserve a space in which we study for the sake of what we’re studying, and in which we examine our own lives and the world we live in… We ought to learn about our particular place in space and time.” As a student, I sometimes find myself caught up in where my education will bring me. I often view it as a means to an end; Diaz offers a more “intrinsic” approach to viewing time at university. I really enjoyed reading Jorge Salles Diaz’s essay as I found it to be well written and persuasive. After reading and analyzing it, I started to think more about what he says on finding ourselves in college. Many of us daydream of the future and can’t wait to start our careers, but why? University is the time meant for us to discover ourselves and explore what we want to do with our lives. That being said, I think Diaz does an excellent job of persuading his audience to take the time to consider other issues that

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