What Is a College Education All About Anyway?
By Beth Harrison, Ph.D.
Program Director, University Learning Services
At this time of the fall, students and faculty are all focused on the same thing: surviving until December and the end of the semester. Faculty will soon begin to wonder if they can “get through” all the material they want to cover. Many students will start to wonder—and worry—about their grades at the end of the semester. And many parents’ concerns aren’t far behind.
Perhaps those concerns are inevitable in a system in which grades (for students) and content “material” (for faculty) are central. But I can’t help wondering if we are losing sight of why students are at the university in the first place. Thus my question: What is a college education all about anyway?
What’s your answer to the question? Getting a degree in order to get a good job? Becoming an expert at something? Acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to be a responsible citizen? Learning about the world we live in? Preparing for a professional degree? Some freshmen would answer: It’s what you do after high school. It’s what my family wanted me to do. It’s what I’ve always planned to do.
Of course there is no right answer to this question, and that is my point. Everyone goes to college for their own reason. If there is one thing that all those reasons have in common, though, perhaps it is learning. Hopefully every student goes to college to learn something.
That, I think, is what often gets lost in our concern for grades and even in our concern for just plain surviving: the joy, the growth, the effort, the sense of liberation, the value to our lives that come with learning.
How can we bring learning back to the center of college for our students—and for ourselves? By asking our students what they’ve learned rather than how they’ve done. By discussing ideas from their classes with them and exploring with them how those ideas relate to the world outside school. By respecting their choices. By making the time to become learners again ourselves. That is what college—and lifelong learning—are all about!
Dr. Beth Harrison can be contacted via email at eharriso@email.arizona.edu |
