Education Is the Key to Better Decision Making

Education Is the Key to Better Decision Making

If an expert makes a prediction or states facts to support his opinion, does it mean what the expert is saying is true? As a society, we need to better educate ourselves about current events that are happening around the world. By using what we have read or learnt, we can use the information to form our own opinions. Furthermore, if we are researching on a specific topic, overthinking can possibly lead to dissecting the situation way beyond what the initial goal is. Furthermore, the availability of multiple sources also does not mean that the information is going to be correct. In order to make better decisions, we need to educate ourselves more, so that we can understand what we are ingesting, allowing us to form our own opinions instead of solely copying and using expert's opinions as our own opinions.

Educating our minds on how to analyze a situation and determining which piece of data to use is a very important tool for every individual. In Louis Menand's article, "Everybody's an Expert", predictions were made by counsellors on how high school students would perform in their freshman years in college. They were given a wide variety of data to make predictions. With all the data they were provided, using just grades and test scores gave the most accurate result, rather than using the additional information that was provided to the counsellors. Furthermore, to make an accurate decision, we do not necessarily need to use all pieces of data that is provided to make an accurate prediction or statement. Instead, we need to pick and choose which data is relevant and which data is irrelevant. To make the best choices in life, we need to be able to examine multiple pieces of data and be able to pick out the relevant pieces that will allow us to make the best and most accurate decision. These skills are usually developed through basic education that we acquire when we are attending school. Courses are available in post-secondary such as statistics which focus on probability and other aspects on decision making.

Attaining education in a certain field such as sciences does not mean you skills are only limited to that field. There are many other hidden skills that you don't think of when we associate a person with a degree in a certain field. For example, team works skills, problem solving skills and decision making skills. Ever since I can remember, we have always been faced with lessons on values. There were many ways we were taught values, such as: school rules, classroom guidelines, assemblies and guest speakers. Being exposed to values allows us to make smarter, more positive decisions. Values are what shape our beliefs. In school we have been taught to follow rules. It makes sense to use the skills learnt through your education to make the right decision because it has benefited us so far. By having this skill, we can