Learning by Degrees

A Second Thought on Education with “Learning by Degrees” by Rebecca Mead

I don’t recommend the article “Learning by Degrees” by Rebecca Mead, which questions the belief that goes against attending college to be successful in the modern society, should be published in the next upcoming issue of The Shorthorn. The article was written for an entirely different audience than The Shorthorn’s daily regular readers. Even though the article has powerful logos and ethos appeals, I would think readers from the Shorthorn wouldn’t find the topic of the article fascinating at all and wouldn’t even put up with reading the article in the first place. Also, another factor that fails to be an article that the Shorthorn’s readers would find interesting is that it lacks a claim that fails to make a case for going towards a career path immediately or obtaining a college degree first. Through my analysis on this article, I’ve provided several reasons and evidence why I don’t find this article should be published since she is trying to convince a hostile audience in this essay, gives a weak claim, and has credibility for a separate view that she is discussing about.
The main audience the article “Learning by Degrees” is trying to convince is average working parents with kids that are about to graduate from high school and preparing them for a higher education or a career that’ll be successful. This article is trying to convince a hostile and resistant audience instead of a friendlier audience. We must remember that the Shorthorn is mainly written and read by college students that are studying for a degree and involve college professors that have already received their degrees. “Learning By Degrees” gives a pathos appeal to the question of whether going to college to readers who’ve already made a decision on this topic, making it harder for someone to recommend this article to the Shorthorn. If Mead was trying to publish this article for the Shorthorn, she should have considered