How Critical Thinking Help Us In Life?

If you were to take a poll in the United States asking if obtaining a college degree improves your career opportunities, you would most likely get a resounding, “yes.” During my research on the subject, I found that almost every single article I came across proved time and time again that college graduates have more career opportunities at their disposal, as well as higher incomes. USNews.com states, “A major-and prominent- benefit of attending college is increased employment prospects.” (Equal Justice Works, 2012). Potential employers are not just looking for someone who is educated in that particular career field, but they also see college graduates as a certain type of person; the type of person that displays stick-to-itiveness.

There are some that would argue that the state of the economy in the United States is making it more difficult for college graduates to enter the workforce in the career of their choice. Bethany Clough, an author for the Charleston Gazette, points out that college grads are met with stiff competition and that in 2009, fewer than 20% of recent graduates had accepted jobs offers after graduation. That number is less than half of what it was just two years prior. Bethany Clough (2009) So, it seems that even with the state of the economy, college grads still have an advantage in the job market over those that have no college degree.

Process of Critical Thinking to Find Content for My Answer
The method of critical thinking used to find my answer was, problem-solving. I know that may sound odd as a method for finding content, so please allow me to explain. I am a very methodical and logical thinker. It is because of those traits that I create a “plan of attack” for any assignment before jumping in. By using my problem-solving skills, I was able to research and come up with some well-reasoned logic for answering the question about the college degrees improving your career opportunities. I followed a serious of steps. I saw the “problem” as being that I didn’t know where to start with this assignment. I listed all the different possibilities and different outcomes of ways I could tackle this essay. On that list, I had put down that I should reach out to my professor and simply ask the questions that I had for more clarification. Once I reached out to the professor, I was able to focus on my content, conduct a well-reasoned response, and finish in a timely manner.

Using Critical Thinking in Other Areas
Through this class, I’ve learned that critical thinking is imperative in pretty much every aspect of your life. For me , I’ve implemented critical thinking techniques into my marriage. I’ve realized that some of my barriers such as emotional and enculturation have impeded my ability to listen to my husband and understand where he’s coming from. By not letting my emotions control me with anger and defensiveness, I’m able to really hear him and let his thoughts and words sink in. I’ve learned to ask the important questions and get to the root of where his mind is instead of simply expressing my own opinions. Also, critical thinking is a great skill to utilize in my everyday life when watching or reading the news. It’s important not to let the “puppeteer” feed us information without evidentiary support and facts. I now find myself often researching things I hear on TV or read on the internet because taking them into account as “facts.”

Critical Thinking for the Future
In the future, I will definitely continue to practice critical thinking in my everyday life. I can do this by implementing any number of the techniques we learned about in this course. Identifying critical thinking barriers is a very important first step. Since I have already identified some of my personal critical thinking barriers, I am working towards breaking them down and opening my mind. In the future, I also want to continue to pay close attention to credible and non-credible sources for factual claims. Today with the internet, we have a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, but it can be difficult to sort through the garbage. Critical thinking will definitely come into play when finding credible sources because I will be asking the important questions in order to determine what’s credible and what’s not. Lastly, I will continue to use problem-solving. I would like to think of myself as an advanced problem solver already, just because of how my mind works. I will continue to develop and hone this skill to grow as a critical thinker.

References

Clough, B. (2009, Jul 25). CAREERS: The Charleston Gazette Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/331668410?accountid=35812

Equal Justice Works. (2012). US News & World Report. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/2012/09/12/finding-the-value-in-a-college-degree