Entry 55: Public Interest

Respond to the quotation below. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

“It seems to me incumbent upon this and other schools’ graduates to recognize their responsibility to the public interest...unless the graduates of this college...are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion...then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible.”
--John F. Kennedy, at the ground breaking for the Amherst College Frost Library, October 26, 1963

• I believe that graduates of any college must put back and return their talents to society, for the public interest. The people who go to school and receive an education must at least return sometime back to the society and neighborhood that allowed them to grow and succeed, as well as prosper. As the quote mentioned, the people within a group are the most important part of democracy, and without the people, the democracy will fall. Another situation where the democracy might fall may be when the people constituting the democracy do not contribute and sustain the democracy. Therefore, as the quote mentions above, the talents of these educated people must to placed back into society for the wider, public interest; they have to contribute to society.
• The main way that people can contribute to society would be to enter the work force and get a job that will be able to put their talents to good use. I would most likely get a job that has to do with mass communication and psychology, since these two fields are the ones that I am most interested in. To be more specific, I would most likely be concentrating on consumer marketing and advertising, since these two are most closely related with psychology (so I can out my psychology to good use).