Essay : places and forms of power

Anglais Oral : Places & Forms of Power

I am going to talk about the notion of Places and Forms of Power. First of all, I would like to give a definition of “power”. Having power means having an influence on somebody, on an environment. Nowadays, most of the influential people in the world went to first-rate universities. In these places students are trained to be powerful people and most of the time the competition is very fierce. The power of knowledge in University is tightly related to the power of money. Indeed, the tuition fees have increased with time in UK and in America, the Universities of the IVY league are priceless.

Is access to Universities enabled to everyone or is it only possible to ones who can afford it?

Firstly, I am going to talk about the power of knowledge and secondly about the power of money.

In class, we studied a photograph of the entrance of Harvard. By looking at this picture, we notice the power of this world-known university and part of the IVY league. The blazon of Harvard is made of a golden eagle carrying a book, symbolizing knowledge and its motto is “VERITAS” which means truth in Latin. This refers to elite, people who went to Harvard constitute the alumni, they reunite and they all form a network of contact and it helps them to be powerful in their career. The photograph depicts a huge building, with gigantic columns that remind of ancient Greece temple.

In class, we studied a document, which evokes a young man’s situation; he aims to enter Oxford University to become Prime Minister, because Oxford is a nursery of future Prime Ministers. He did not entered Oxford and now he does everything he can to enter any University. Therefore, joining these universities is a challenge but without this fierce competition will loose their power. Besides it is well rewarded because once you enter the university, they offer you a royal path to a brilliant future. However all of this has a price and the power of knowledge is not the only type of power that has a link with universities.

Indeed, the power of money has a large impact on Universities in the UK and in the USA. The rise of tuition fees in Great Britain these past few years has had many consequences. In class, we studied an article from the Guardian that shows two different points of view. On one hand, there is a boy, aged 18, who is in favour of this rise. He argues that Universities need money to fund the facilities that are implied in students’ lives, he adds that the rise is needed to maintain high teaching standards. On the other hand, there is a girl, aged 15, she argues that university degree will become a symbol of money rather than of hard work and commitment, she also says that they will be less diversity in Universities.

To answer to those problems, the government proposed a loan, for low-income students who want to go to University. Students will start reimbursing their debt with their first salary which is above a certain amount of money, but it might not be enough and the poorest might have to do extra jobs while being at University, which is a disadvantage compared to the richer students. In the United States, Universities like Harvard or Yale offer scholarships to students who are very talented in one particular sport. It gives a chance to low-income students to enter to prestigious Universities and it gives possibility to enter Universities with non-academic skills but it is extremely rare and this system does not exist in United Kingdom.  

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