You know what is a good book for Summer reading? Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg. It is a fast read with "texts" from what characters or authors might have said in Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Garfield, The Odyssey, William Blake, King Lear, Medea, Rene Descartes, Hamlet, and much more. It is quite funny, especially for the well-read English major.
0 Comments
Yes, there is. I was unsure myself what I was going to do with my English major after I switched from Biology. I thought I needed a major that would lead to a good job, one that would always be in need: doctors. As I continued my education I found myself unhappy and unfulfilled. I switched to English (after much contemplation) and found my niche. I was fulfilled, I had relationships with professors who encouraged me, but most importantly of all, I was fulfilled and I was happy. I enjoyed learning and pushing myself to see the deeper meaning in literature.
I knew I did not want to teach, "NEVER," I said. How wrong I was about that. While I want to teach and am fulfilled by this profession, there is more than only teaching available to English majors. A new website by the MLA promoting alt-academy careers (alternate to the academy) is new and exciting. Many graduate programs do not list where their students who are not pursuing academy jobs get placed. If one is trying to get a Ph.d but has no interest in the academy or has fears about its job prospects and wants other options, there was nothing. Now #alt-academy provides information on alternate academy jobs. Check it out to find out the successful future that an English major/graduate/Ph.d student can have outside the academy. Have you ever asked yourself this? What is the purpose of college? What is the purpose of a liberal arts degree versus a research based degree? Many students assume this is where they were supposed to go, getting a job is not for them and this is a way of putting that off for four more years. Maybe they have always wanted to go to college because their parents did and assumed that was the logical next step. Others have perhaps put more thought into college and desire the knowledge they will gain at an institution of higher learning.
Colleges operated primarily as seminaries. Harvard, the first university in America was first a seminary school. The idea was to search for a higher meaning and make humans better. This was done through the glory of the Lord. In the early days of Universities, men knew the way to become better men, and subsequently human beings, they needed to become closer to the Lord. Along the way, colleges left the seminary route, but still maintained a tenent most dear, to better humanity. The progression of Universities and the pursuit of knowledge has came more than 100 years and today, the gaol is, at least of liberal arts colleges, to better humanity through a well rounded education, creating men and women of worth, significance, poise, and graduating better human beings. The goal of each class taken at CBU, a liberal arts college, is not to force students to take classes that "don't matter," but to have students take classes that will enlighten them to new subjects, make them well rounded individuals, and test their drive. College is not supposed to be easy, it is not supposed to be solely about your major, it is about making you the best human being you can be. I have heard many students argue for only taking classes that matter to their major, no other English, Math, History, or Communications classes. Well maybe those students should think about the type of college they enrolled in. If they do not like being forced to take gen. ed.'s, maybe they should go somewhere else, to a non-liberal arts college. Students need to do their homework on choosing a college and understanding the terms used on each college website. Each word means something and gives the reader valuable information. The focus of a liberal-arts college is to make humans better, the focus of a research school is to be the smartest and to share those smarts with society. While one still helps humanity, it is nuanced from liberal arts colleges. The liberal arts seek to help humanity through the people that make up humanity. Research schools seek to help humanity by researching and sharing those results with humanity at large, not at individuals or on that level. Both colleges ultimately want to help society, they simply choose different ways of doing it. One starting from the ground up, the other from the top down. So, what is college for you? Did you choose the right university and do you believe it will help and mold your outlook of society when it's time to graduate? A new semester and a new year. New classes and new teachers. What are students to do with all this newness? When December finishes and Christmas is over, we all look forward to fireworks on New Years and watching the ball drop, but what comes after? Resolutions? The drudgery of school? Perhaps, but what if this was the year you decided to publish, to write an academic article for Alpha Tau, or write creatively for the “Dazed Starling?” Maybe this year should be the year you commit to writing new and inventive essays for class and really commit to researching outside of class. How many years left do you have at CBU, anyway? Not many, and where else can you use the resources CBU offers for free? No where. Those databases and researching hours you’ve spent in previous classes can be found nowhere else, at least not for free. You’d have to pay $50 or so for a few hours. Learn all you can now, take advantage of the resources available. Read a kid’s book in the library just because it is there.
Pop into office hours just to get to know your professors. They were undergrads too, gain their knowledge about the subject they are teaching, but also ask them life advice. Everyone on campus is older than you (most likely), so use their years of navigating school, the job market, and their life experiences in missions and charity work to mold decisions about your future. Don’t know what to do after graduation? Ask a handful of professors what they did, most times their answers will surprise you, for life gets in the way and almost no one continues on the path they set out for themselves. And that’s ok. In this new year, take the time to get to know yourself and what you want. Get to know your peers and professors, research deeper than you ever have before, and push yourself to publish now. FREEDOM. FINALS ARE OVER.
Spring is coming. Ha, did you get that Game of Thrones reference? Why is it every time an assignment is due, people do something else? I had five papers due once back from Thanksgiving break and instead, I rearranged my living room, organized my closet, de-cluttered my room, decorated the walls with vinyl stickers (thank you Amazon), and now I’m writing this blog post. How can it be that when the pressure to finish an assignment before the due date makes some want to put it off even more and do other things? It sometimes feels like if one writes something else, like a blog post, it will put one in the mood to write for real. That if I can get this done, I will be able to check something else off my list and feel progress. Maybe it is the progress we need as students to feel like we have accomplished something. Ever notice the discussions in the caf about how much people got done in a certain period of time? “I read the novel for English, wrote my American Government paper, submitted the blackboard discussion, emailed my professor that pending question, and I worked out.” It seems to be the little things, the small goals and simple assignments is what constitutes progress for the college student. When the assignments get too big and the deadline nears, the small bits of progress snowball into the fifteen page research papers and final drafts of essay. Then the semester is over and it’s back to Netflix and sleeping in.
|
Alpha Tau Sigma at
Cal Baptist Archives
May 2015
Categories
All
Written by
|