One site that I think is very helpful to me is Khan Academy.
It has a great programming section,
and I think that programming is crucial to the increasingly modern world. Steve Jobs said that
Every person who lives on this earth should learn how to program. Khan Academy also has
other great features to help us learn like math, science (chemistry and physics included),
business and finance, and arts and humanities. All of these, obviously, help us in the real world.
Math helps us with every job. No matter what you are doing, math will always play into it.
Science is good if you want to be a scientist (obviously), physicist or chemist, business and
finance if you want to go into economics and a businessman, and arts and humanities if you
want to be an artist. These all, without a doubt, help my learning right now and prepare me for
the future.
It is important to know the reliability of a website because it helps you know if what you
are doing is legit. If I found out that Khan Academy was feeding my false academic information,
I would have wasted 3 years of my life. Not every case is as extreme as that, but in other cases
you could put trackers or viruses (it's happened to me before) that could harm or control your
computer. It could include porn, things that would destroy you spiritually. Once I was playing an
online game when the connection to that server broke out, so I searched on google for another
server. It seemed legit, so I clicked on the link. I happened to glance at my search bar where I
noticed that it was bouncing from link to link. One of them was entitled “tr4ack" or something. I
immediately pressed command+Q and went to system preferences. I went to cookies, and saw
that website listed. I then deleted its connection to my computer. A week or so later we took my
computer in and got it checked just to make sure there were no more viruses on it. There was
one other on there, and we got it removed. It had my IP address! That experience taught me
that I should (not play online games, ha ha) always make sure that the websites I visit are
reliable.
My perspective on the internet has definitely changed! I learned that the internet is a
tool. Its not an entertainer or a time waster, its a tool to help us mankind to succeed in life. Some
people may use it for other reasons, but I believe that the purpose of technology is supposed to
help us grow. That is why I am going to use it in my career when I graduate. I am going to go
into computer science, and use my programming skills to learn other languages (such as Ruby,
Python, HTML, CSS and on) and then do something successful. I have always, however, been
interested in economics. In fact, “interested” in an understatement. I have always been very
interested in economics. Which is why my plan is to somehow combine computer science and
economics/finance. I think that will make me successful. The thing is, I’m not just trying to be
successful, I’m doing what I like. I think that those two combined make a pretty good life!
I can't imagine my life without the internet. Not at all! I do my school through the internet, my
communications with friends through the internet, my future career through the internet
(computer science/programming)! I don't know what I would be doing without this crucial tool. It
has proved to help me in so many ways. I think that I would be reading more if I wasn’t online.
After all, that was the only way to learn back when they didn't have the web. They either heard it
from someone or read it. So thats what I would be doing. One thing I would change (and am
changing) is how many minutes I spend playing online games. They’re addicting and take up
too much precious time. Most of them are also worthless (except for learning games, the ones I
do through Stanford University)! However, I am changing that and am using the internet for what
it should more commonly be used for, as an academic tool for future success.
