Month: October 2017

Opener: Show pictures of bored college students in a giant lecture hall, ask why are we here?

-the college years make an impact on students beyond their time in higher education: alumni parents at football games, diplomas hanging in offices

-the purpose of college has evolved since the founding of the higher education system in the Middle Ages: misconception of ivory tower, separate from society — in fact, colleges subject to societal and governmental pressure

-In the beginning: religious education, mainly preservation of knowledge from generation to generation — about training students to assume roles of religious leadership

-Later: German research university (very specialized education, students only learn about their major) vs. English colleges (learning about a core curriculum of the humanities)

-Morill Land Grant universities (including Penn State!): established to educate the residents of a state for low cost, main focus on technical skills

-Up until 1950s, higher education in the U.S. was reserved mainly for society’s upper classes and a select few who were considered gifted enough

-GI Bill provided funds for thousands of veterans to attend college after World War II, explosion in numbers of students and federal aid

-As demographics of college students and societal forces changed, colleges changed their character to reflect the diversity of their students (backgrounds and demographics)

-dropped Latin and Greek requirements for admissions — allowed for students who weren’t private school graduates

-shift away from core curriculum and other course requirements for students

-colleges became less about instilling specific traits or ideals in students, more about letting students find themselves and take advantage of opportunities on their own

-talk about Penn State: we might say we are Penn State, but what makes us Penn State? Ask audience to name things Penn State students share in common.

-everyone is studying different subjects, taking different classes, involved in their own niche on campus

-we’re all students on this campus, but we all want different things out of our education and Penn State provides us the chance to realize our objectives.

-remains to be seen how the college experience will change

 

 

In “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator,” writer Tim Urban recalls his struggles overcoming academic procrastination during his college years and the underlying problem of procrastinating in life. This is one of my favorite TED Talks because of its simplicity and relevance to my own life.

As a fellow procrastinator who is admittedly writing this blog post the night before class, I related to Urban’s thought process as he delayed work on his thesis from the beginning of the year to three days before the deadline. I have never written ninety pages in three days (yet!), but his visuals depicting the hypothetical “climb” of work required to finish his thesis under a six month, three month and three day timescale effectively illustrated the problems with procrastination. The scenarios become more and more impractical, however, the procrastinator convinces themselves that they can pull it off because they have done it before.

A significant portion of the audience is likely procrastinators, or people who have experience dealing with procrastinators, so Urban’s humor helps them feel open to considering something society considers a shameful habit. While he stands at a podium surrounded by hundreds of adoring listeners, he shows a rare sense of humility that establishes his personal credibility on giving advice to help the audience live their best lives. He jokes that his thesis was one of the best the university ever saw, and I inwardly rolled my eyes because that’s how every cheesy internet story ends. When he confessed to the audience that the thesis was terrible, I felt more willing to listen to him because he has the honesty to admit his mistakes and the intelligence to learn from them. I saw him not as an expert giving a dry explanation of the negative effects of procrastination, but as another person who deals with the same mental hurdles I do.

Once Urban promised to show the audience diagrams of the procrastinator’s brain, I braced myself to absorb complex depictions of brain activity charts and what each feature demonstrated. It took me a few replays to appreciate his bait-and-switch style of speaking. The childlike drawings of the instant gratification monkey, the rational decision maker and the panic monster proved more engaging than colored pictures of brains. Seeing my motivations boiled down to such simple players helped me make sense of why I procrastinated and how procrastination was really giving in to weaknesses rather than playing to my strengths. In the past, I tried to explain away my procrastination by telling myself that my procrastination made me smarter because it taught me how to work under pressure.

The overarching message of Urban’s TED Talk introduced a novel way of thinking of procrastination as not just a student thing, but an issue all people face as they pass through their lives. Even though I still have decades to live, the boxes on the screen showing every week of a 90-year life  put into perspective how few weeks we have to waste. By putting off what we want to accomplish another week or another year, it becomes easier to never do it at all. I liked that the speech turned what seems like a topic relevant only to one demographic (procrastinators) into a message everyone can benefit from.

 

For my paradigm shift essay, I’m considering writing an essay about the changes in the role college plays in the development of young adults. On one hand, abundant student loans and the large number of higher ed institutions makes college more accessible to learners from diverse backgrounds. As a result, college is becoming a familiar part of the path from teenager to workforce. However, some are concerned that the oversupply of students and the profit incentives of colleges have made college more of a factory for perfectly-credentialed graduates than a place to define your identity. I have no idea on my views of the topic, so most of my early research would focus on reading as much material as possible from each side, then formulate my own position.

Given my obvious interest in the issue as a college student, I want to look at how the evolving job market and college application process have changed the way students view their high education years. I recently read the memoir “Privilege,” the story of the author’s years at Harvard and his disillusionment with the school’s lofty reputation. I would include research from the book, as well as accounts from other authors, both contemporary and past, of their college years.

In that case, my essay would focus mainly on personal accounts, though I would use statistics to provide an idea of the situation. I think the most effective means of conveying my thesis, whatever it becomes, will be through the eyes of people who have been through the system. Personal feelings are best expressed through stories, rather than one-phrase survey responses or numbers.

A secondary I have is to look at the college admissions process, how the “ideal” student has changed over the years. During my time applying to 11 colleges last year, I worried endlessly about this topic, tailoring my essays to fit the aesthetic of each school while trying to distinguish myself just enough from the crowd. Even though I wasn’t born at the time, I tried to think of the years when students didn’t have to write numerous essays or win top awards to get into college. I can’t imagine Brown having only seven students to fill its massive campus (actually happened, according to tour guide), which is why I would like to explore the issue further. Given the large numbers of students whose applications pass through admissions offices, the essay would have to be more numbers-heavy.