In less than a week my youngest will be making her way to Edinburgh, Scotland where she will live and study at the University of Edinburgh for the next five months. The university was established by royal charter by King James VI in 1582 and is the sixth-oldest university in continuous operation in the English-speaking world.
The nerd that I am thinks that this is pretty cool.
If you had asked her in high school where she would see herself in 5 years, I doubt that Scotland would have been one of her answers. As the kid of a college professor who also studied abroad, she has some advantages. I understand a little bit about how the system works. More importantly, I know how to ask questions and how to ask for help when I don’t know the answers. These are traits that I hope to have passed on to her and her sister.
Study abroad experiences of any length change the way in which we understand and move in the world. Studying and going about your day to day life in another culture and language - even if it is a version of English you are unaccustomed to - helps you learn and grants you the opportunity to have intelligent conversations with people who know the world differently than you do.
These past several years have been incredibly challenging for college students and educators alike. Over tea last week, I lamented with a religious studies colleague about the lack of engagement of my freshmen honors students. It is normal for us all to become overwhelmed near the end of the semester, but the number of classes students missed and the seeming unwillingness to ask questions and engage in discussion was something new to me.
As an anthropology professor, the majority of my students had never heard of the discipline before college, let alone know what you can do with the degree. As someone who has been teaching First Year Experience courses at WIU for over a decade, I can count on one hand, the number of students who knew what anthropology was before starting the course. Some students begrudgingly take the class, disregarding the valuable lessons they could learn if they viewed the material as more than just “a general education requirement” to get out of the way. Instead, they find themselves focused on “college as job training” and are therefore missing the opportunity to learn.
I get it. University in the U.S. is expensive. Believe me I know, with two students in college at the same time. That said, being human is much more than the jobs we are required to perform to support ourselves during our adult lifetime. Being human means making use of the knowledge offered by “useless” classes such as philosophy, literature, astronomy, and anthropology.
As I begin to prepare my classes for the new semester, I am thinking about the ways in which I can better cultivate my students' curiosity and encourage the thrill of learning something new. Life isn’t measured only by test scores and the ability to answer all the questions correctly.
As Jonathan Malesic writes, “It’s hard to encourage open-ended curiosity when schools are judged by standardized test scores, and it’s hard to defeat narrow-minded careerism when the entire economy seemingly mandates it.”
College may end in a short four years, but the experience of going to college and learning how to be the best human you can be, should last a lifetime. No matter how good and dedicated the teachers are, students need to be willing to learn. As the Chinese proverb says, “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
Here’s to a new year of opening doors and learning a lot.
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad is a professor of Anthropology at Western Illinois University.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the university or Tri States Public Radio.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.