"Oh the thinks you can think!"
-Dr. Seuss
Critical thinking was never a topic of conversation in my life until this school year. My education up to this point has just been about doing what is necessary to get by. I had never gone above and beyond what was required of me because I didn't have to. High school was a breeze on which I floated by with excellent grades without really even trying. My level of thinking went no further than to memorize something for a test and forget about it immediately after. College has taught me the importance of thinking critically.
At the college level of education, the bare minimum will probably be enough for you to pass, but that is all. In order to excel and succeed at Southern, I have to do what is asked of me and more. I need to go above and beyond expectations. I cannot simply memorize facts and expect to get good grades in all of my classes. I need to use higher level thinking and actually absorb what is being taught to me.
To think critically is to ask why and how? Why is this fact true? How does one thing affect another? If you write an essay full of facts stated by other people with none of your own reflections and opinions incorporated, you will not get a good grade. Your professors want to see you come up with something original. They do not want you to repeat what they taught you because they already know all of that information. They are setting you up to make your own discoveries.
Critical thinking is all about taking in what you have learned and thinking about it in a deeper way. No one who has ever made a great discovery about the world has just accepted the facts given to them. They question, elaborate, and dig deeper into the concept. Once one question is answered, another layer unfolds and they ask a new one.
Even if you do not plan on discovering a new element in the Periodic Table, critical thinking should still be a part of your life. Analyzing and thinking about a topic can never hinder your knowledge, it can only broaden your horizons and create opportunities for new intellectual growth.
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