Let’s get meta.

This is an opinion piece about having opinions. It is not about knowing when to share your opinion, but rather why you should have one.

Opinions gain nothing from agreement. Perhaps, it affirms the original person who had the opinion, but not much more.

As a student at Washburn University, you are here to eventually be better than your professors. This may sound harsh or egotistical at first, but it is true. You are not here to sidestep next to the people who are teaching you. Otherwise, you aren’t advancing anything.

The point of a higher education, as strange as it seems, is to eventually overpass those who taught you. In a perfect world, you form your own ideas and continue on to better the world.

In this way, it is important for students to have their own subset of ideals different or more elaborate than professors. Always agreeing with what professors think may seem like the right thing to do from a politeness standpoint, but don’t.

This doesn’t mean you should blatantly scream in the middle of a class that “grades are stupid” or “you have terrible opinions,” but don’t hold back from crafting your own ideas and beliefs.

Instead, you should formulate your ideas in a way that doesn’t sound like an attack when disagreeing with a professor.

It may not be important to share them at times, but I feel it is important to have them. If you never have ideas outside of what a professor has taught you, then new ideas won’t be heard.

It takes one person with a different opinion to change how the world is viewed. The Wright Brothers had a different opinion than others and now we can go anywhere and that is just one example.

Innovators are people who are abrasive and dare to question ideals. Even if you keep your ideas to yourself, remember to dare to ask challenging questions once in awhile. If you really want to know something, go out of your way to learn it.

Even if you have to test hypotheses that have already been validated, find your own viewpoint. Anyone at Washburn could be the next DaVinci or Edison or Earhart.

This is just an opinion, though, and if you disagree with it, you are already catching on. If you agree, then find another viewpoint, see everything from all possible angles.