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Andrew Braaksma's On The Road Essay

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As Andrew Braaksma works at a factory in his article, “Some Lessons from the Assembly Line,” he learns how to work hard and make the most of what he has as a college student through recognizing the difference between himself and both his peers at school and coworkers at the factory. This journey he makes, working at the factory every summer, is represented by the book he has-Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” which details the trip made by one writer across the country as he discovers himself. Similar to this book, Braaksma seems to be discovering himself as well and learning important lessons about the world, such as, “how lucky I am to get an education, how to work hard, how easy it is to lose that work once you have it” (Braaksma). These ideas, such as working hard, craft Braaksma’s ideology as he recognizes the necessity of college …show more content…

With his friends working easier part-time jobs, Braaksma works in the factory-driven by the desire for more pay and to live at home over the summer. Braaksma receives advice from one of his coworkers as she advise him to stay in school to avoid the physical labor. There is something to be learned from this as he is motivated to work hard at school by this because he doesn’t want to end up at the factory all four seasons. Braaksma say it himself, “Factory life has shown me what my future might have been like had I never gone to college in the first place.” Working in the factory away from school each summer has tempered him to work hard not only when at the factory, but when writing papers or studying at school. “When I'm back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy re-writes seems like a cop-out after seeing what I would be doing without school” (Braaksma). He recognizes that at times he doesn’t utilize the hard-working ideology from the factory, but everyone gets a little lazy and Braaksma recalls the factory to realizes his

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