A Tale of Two Perspectives, by Eric Waggoner. (May 2015)
Asked to contribute to a “Welcome Incoming Student” document the college is putting together, I found myself thinking a lot about the “customer model/I’m paying this money and coming to college to get myself a job” mentality that some (not all) students arrive with, and that many woefully idiotic pundits and politicos keep parroting should be the driving motivation for higher education. I do think higher ed does provide, among other benefits, an exploratory ground for one’s professional life. No question about that. But this “customer model” is a fundamentally limited and limiting way to approach one’s college experience, and it signals the woefully misguided way we approach discussions of the value of higher education in contemporary American life. (We are in most measurable ways a fiercely anti-intellectual nation, and always have been.) In part, here’s what I came up with. Appreciate any thoughts from parents of college students (now or future) and my colleagues in the Ed Biz.
“If you’re here only to check boxes, you’ll probably come out the other side with a degree. Congratulations: So will everyone else. But if you take active responsibility for your learning–if you show up each day ready to work, if you listen in class, if you take notes on the conversations we’re having, if you ask questions (please, please ask questions), if you listen to the answers I give, and think about them, and ask more questions designed to help us all think more carefully–then I promise you, you’re going to get every second of the time, and all of the energy, at my disposal. And your time here will be rewarding, even the challenging parts. When you finally move into your paid career, you’re going to have become the kind of person who keeps improving, because you’ll know what it’s like to be challenged, and to problem-solve, and to imagine the world through viewpoints that aren’t your own. And your life’s work, no matter what it is, will make you happy. The work you do will be a natural extension of the kind of active, intellectually engaged person you’ve made yourself, out of the raw material of your passions and talents.
“Because that’s more important than checking boxes: the life you want to create. If you can make the life you live as much like the life you want as possible, you’ve won. Take responsibility for your learning–which above all means learning how to think and communicate clearly, how to process and understand unfamiliar information, and how to adapt to change–and this is where you can figure how to create the life you want for yourself, no matter your field of study.”