As a college student, and as a person who is genuinely interested in the college experience, and in anything to do with popular educational systems in America and other parts of the world, I have…many opinions about learning. In high school I was given an assignment to write a speech about what I thought the world most importantly needed to change (or something equally broad, vague, and ridiculous) and I wrote and spoke passionately about what changes our educational systems needed.
Right now I’m following along a bit with the Facebook group for students entering the Smith College Class of 2014, and a lot of people are concerned about what they should take. I’m sure this is true of incoming freshmen (or first years) across the country, and even for many older students.
Pretty frequently, I see incoming students being advised to explore their interests, not jump into their major, not overload too much, and stuff like that, to strive for the perfect balance of breadth and depth. That pretty much sums up a lot of the advice I received when I was starting my first year. I had a really successful first year of college, and I didn’t really follow any of that token advice. I’m not writing to say that you *shouldn’t* follow that advice. I’m writing to say that you should take it into consideration, but at the end, follow the advice you give yourself, because only you know what you’re really capable of.
My first semester, I took five 4-credit classes, one more than the norm. Three of them were math classes, another was Hebrew, and another was a poetry class. I remember attending a Meet-the-Faculty event the week before classes started, during which I introduced myself to a few teachers. I told a member of the math department that I was planning to take a course she was teaching, and then I went on to explain how there were two other math courses being offered that semester that really interested me as well. She shook her head a bit and went on to tell me that this is a liberal arts college! I have to admit that I was a bit shook up by her disapproval. A couple days later, when I had a meeting with my adviser to discuss my schedule, he also expressed a lot of hesitation about me taking three math classes at the same time, and told me that he felt even two maths during the same semester was a lot to take on. My adviser was very nice, of course, and told me that ultimately I could do whatever I wanted to. I felt pretty good about that, but still his doubt and hesitation crept into my mind and made me doubt myself a tiny bit. I left the meeting with the idea that I’d sign up for 5 classes, and then drop one of them. So what happened is pretty simple: I signed up for 5 classes, and just kept them all.
I’m writing this because if you’re out there in a similar position, and that little bit of doubt is maybe gonna stop you from doing what you really want, well, don’t let it!
Here’s why “branching out” was a bad idea for me: Part of me is not even sure if I believe in branching out! I definitely don’t believe so many colleges should have “general ed” requirements, and I’m very happy that Smith College doesn’t have any. Everyone does so much forced branching out in high school that it seems totally absurd to me that most colleges require you to waste your time all over again with their silly requirements. I’m not saying that there’s a kind of learning that’s a waste of time—as in, I believe there is value in *all* learning—but forced learning most definitely is pointless. If what you’re learning about doesn’t excite you, then it’s a waste of time. If it’s not keeping you up nights, then what’s the point?
In high school I spent four years “learning” about stuff that I didn’t really care about, and the very last thing I wanted to do when I got to college was take classes just for the heck of feeling like I’m getting a “diverse experience.” I knew that I wanted to learn a lot of math, and I was more sure of that than I was of any other academic goal. So that’s exactly what I did. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being sure.
My choices last fall are really paying off. The three math classes I took first semester are the very three that are required for all math majors at Smith, and combined they’re the prerequisites for all the advanced courses (at least until a point; together, the three get you to a new tier). If I’d only done two of those my first semester, I would have had to take the third in the spring, and it would have been difficult to fit in another math class I had the background to take. I would have really stalled myself and likely I would have had to fill my schedule with classes that I would have taken just to get enough credits, and not because learning those subjects was something I truly wanted to do at the time.
Now I’m on the verge of entering my sophomore year, and not only am I 50% complete with my major’s requirements, but I’ve got 9 extra credits to play around with since I took extra classes throughout the year. And because of this, I have a lot of freedom in my class choices. I’ll never have to face a semester with a bunch of classes I’m not really interested in, or with too many difficult classes packed together, or with any constraint that I’m not enthusiastic about.
If you can, I think the #1 thing you should look to avoid as a college student is getting into a situation where your major or graduation is at the stake of having to take a certain class at a certain time, and missing out on something else you wish you could do to take that class. I’m hoping that this will never happen to me, because the idea of missing an interesting and exciting learning experience because of poor timing or because of a requirement just makes me feel sad, like I’m in a frosting store and my parents won’t let me have any sugar, or like I dropped 400 blueberries on the floor, or someone hurt my feelings.
And now that I’m secure in both my major’s requirements and credit requirements, I have the freedom to take pretty much whatever I want. I could take an entire semester off from math and still be on track with, if not ahead of, most of my peers. This isn’t something I plan to do immediately, because currently there are several math offerings that I’m very interested in. But in the future it’s something that might very well happen. Math is an academic priority of mine, but I’m really interested in learning many other disciplines. But I’d rather save that until I feel that I’ve got that math priority under control, so that when I do “branch out” further, I can do so with full focus, enthusiasm, and discipline, and not as a half-hearted gesture of doing something just because I feel like I should want to.
I know a bunch of people who were encouraged to “explore their interests” at the beginning of their time in college, and because they did that, they’re now in crams trying to fit in all their major requirements, and they can no longer take classes in other departments. So their initial branching out is what’s preventing them from actually branching out. The idea that the beginning of your college experience should be exploring stuff until about halfway through when you should lock into a major and stick to it is pretty counter-intuitive to me, as far as my Learning Intuition goes.
What I’m really getting at is I think conscious exploration is great. If you go to a great college, you must know that there are so many more meaningful and enriching things you will want to do than you will have time to. So it should make sense to make the stuff you choose to spend your time on the most important stuff. And that should be the most important stuff to you, not to anyone else, even faculty, advisers, and other authority figures.
I’ve felt the weight of going against advice and know that it can be tough to do, because probably the most sucky thing in the world would be to fail at something and be surrounded by a bunch of I told you so‘s. One of the most helpful strands of thought I frequently keep in my head—you know, whenever things do seem a little tricky, complicated, or difficult—is just, “You can do this. People don’t know what they’re talking about.” Or, as I was telling a friend last night, whenever I am looking for inspiration, I recall the Pokémon episode where Pikachu has to battle Raichu, and eventually wins despite being Raichu’s evolutionary lesser. He wins because of agility. That always stood out to me. But I think that’s a different story.
In the spirit of this post, and in the vein of different stories, stay tuned for “Why Rooming With Your Best Friend From High School Is AWESOME” in a month or so.
Im not sure I agree, but great info anyway thanks