Falling behind in science

In terms of the American lifestyle, we have gotten very comfortable with our lifestyles, yet we complain that we don’t have the latest products and that we work too much. You always hear stories from grandparents and how they struggled and had to work hard and live with the basics…and most of their work was manual labor. However most of us are still living off of our parents and probably will be for a couple of more years. We don’t like manual labor like skilled jobs and we don’t like to pursue demanding educational jobs either. We like the middle range, but we want to reap the benefits of wealth.

We need to update our education system, and this needs to start at the elementary levels. But, this is something the levels of government need to enforce. In addition, it starts with the family. Parents need to be stricter with their children. Kids these days are way too spoiled. I’m not comfortable with the idea of giving young kids ipads to play with because most of the time I see them playing pointless games. Kids demand something and the parents give it to them. For holidays and birthdays, relatives give children toys and toys, whereas there should be more toys that are at least educating.

The author mentions several times how in mid-20^th century, we, as a country, had dreams, goals and role models. We don’t have these anymore except get rich quick via the internet. It seems like once we landed on the moon, we were like well that fantasy is now reality and so imagination ceased. The author made a good point in saying that Chinese worship Bill Gates like he was Britney Spears, and in America, we worship Britney Spears because she’s Britney Spears. We spend more time and energy on educating ourselves on figures like Kim Kardashian and Tony Parker.

At the same time, I wonder what effects these social pressures are having on individuals in Asia. For example, my roommate is from India, and she is constantly being lectured on how she is not pursuing a medical or engineering career field. She always is beating herself up about it as well. In this sense, I am glad that I am not pressured to pursue a field of study that I’m not interested in.