Find your own way!
By this I mean you can tune in to what feels right for you in your current state of mind.
If community college feels right, do it. If four year college seems something you're comfortable with, go ahead.
If a one year gap from college is available, consider it.
Don't let stress sabotage your success by proceeding with something that feels overwhelming. Stress is the deal breaker and the success ender that will set you back and leave you reeling with frustration.
Do what's right for you and don't let anyone else influence your decision by forcing you to follow their agenda instead of your very own personal path!
32
This article offers some specific steps that are interesting, insightful and would be helpful to those at top universities. But nowhere does it address the core value of a univerisity education: education. Which has everything to do with embracing the opportunities to discover more about the world. Be curious. Be open. Listen to speakers on all sorts of topics, with all types of views. Take advantage of the opportunities to learn in both formal and informal settings.
Then you can make your life decisions, and take an invaluable foundation for success to your work.
33
The only kids going through the agonizing pressure you describe are those attempting to get into a selective college. Many students in college (most?) are there without agonizing at all, without even graduating from high school. Think of the entire for-profit system. Think of the community colleges. California has a 114 campus CC system that will take anyone at all. It contains 25% of all the CC students in the US. They don't care a whit what courses an applicant took, what grades were received. They don't even care about HS graduation. And CC is positioned as the smart FIRST CHOICE for college. No agonizing. No needless high school education either.
In this country's zealous pursuit of "college for all", there is a college for every mirror fogger who can be helped to fill out an application for grants/loans.
Don't look at the graduation stats, though. Incredibly, students who do poorly in high school don't do well in college either.
11
So this article is only for Ivy league or top 50 best college students?
Most of the people in this article come from colleges/universities that are truly built for "learning skills" and figuring out academic desires. You could spend over 7 years at schools that are prestigious, graduate , write an article with zero job experience with writing articles and be praised higher than graudates from average public / private colleges.
I value the article, but I'd recommend it even more if it came for a more relatable university.
I read a post recently from a past Biology graduate that networked and interned a lot from the area of her university. However, once she moved to California , it became very hard to compete for jobs due to stanford graduates that interned alongside popular scientists and celebrities.
21
Getting through college not just to get a degree is treasured period of one's life. Frank Bruni's advice on how to get the most out of college is sound. Everyone in the USA should have this golden opportunity to go to an affordable college and invest in a college education most appropriate to their abilities and career goals. Just as high school choice, private or public should be made by parents who know their children better than anyone else, which college to go to from a vast choice should be a choice to be made primarily by the student without breaking the bank of mom and dad.
America is great because public education is free up to the high school level and because everyone who wishes to get college education can get federal student loans. Unfortunately the debt due to the student loans runs in trillions. Hopefully all those who have outstanding loans got the most out of their college education and can look back at their investment being worthwhile similar to having bought a house but much more rewarding.
Keep the current state of education intact it has got us where we are today.
8
Great advice for well-adjusted kids from privileged families (Times' readers should know who they are). Bruni refers to less fortunate kids, working at jobs and caring for families, but he has in mind the ones on the quadrangle.
When I left home for Yale in 1980, my dad told me that college was about working hard, not socializing or having fun. It's not easy to waste the extraordinary resources that Yale lavishes on its students, but due to personal issues (family background, social anxiety, alcohol abuse, an overwhelming sense of dislocation and intimidation), I mostly stayed in my comfort zone.
See Jeff Hobbs' "Short, Tragic Life of Robert Peace" for an extreme, but corrective, portrait of a brilliant student who is unable to build a bridge from inner-city Newark to Ivy League glitter. A place like Yale has a way of making you feel special that can serve you poorly in later life.
The norm in our system of higher education: students who are vocation-minded from necessity, taught by horrendously under-paid adjuncts.
20
College is WAY, way oversold here. (caveat, I have a graduate degree in Ed) So much spent on education yet we get Trump, Rudy, Pence and the other not so funny clowns from American Universities. Did you know that Dan Quayle and Mike Pence both graduated from the same Indiana law school? So much mediocrity from one state and law school.
12
Excellent - we finally agree on something ;)
2
"My focus is on optimal ways to socialize..."
Sorry, but I'm not shelling out thousands of bucks per year so my kids can "socialise." They're at school to learn, not party.
"And they build social capital, realizing that above all else, they’re in college “to widen the circle of human beings who know you and care about you,”"
Complete nonsense. My daughter is at university to study chemistry, ancient western civilisations, and 19th century literature with, presently, a view to law school (yeah, I don't get it either...). My son is there to study physics and biology and plans to go into medical research. Neither of them needs "to widen the circle of human beings who know ... and care about [them]." That sort of thing might be important for journalism majors and other squishy subjects, but it's not in the real world.
Mr Bruni is offering a people-person perspective, but doesn't seem to realise that a big percentage of the population aren't people-persons. My kids, like me, are far more comfortable alone with a book than they are out "socialising," and that's true of a lot of us.
11
You missed what Bruno was talking about. Go back and read it. It is about learning to make connections not at parties but with profs. And no they aren’t all adjuncts. Bruno specifically stated be wary of partying taking over your life — set limits. Bruno stressed the importance of learning to think because in the end, this ability is what will sustain you in career and in life. Even as a scientist one must understand how the world works, the effect of history on all invention, and that thinking, curiosity, and openness to others provide an avenue to lifetime satisfaction.
33
How to get the most of college?
Get out of college. Fast.
3
For me going to college 69 years go I was lucky. Way in the back of my mind without any notion of how it got there was this simple, totally inexperienced thought:
College is like a pond and you are a sponge. Go there and soak up everything the sponge will absorb. Squeeze it out and repeatedly absorb. Take only full professors or associates or assistants and drain them of everything they know. Meet and greet everyone you can. Then start taking it on yourself to build whatever life you can.
11
I wonder how many actual college-bound high school students read this article? Hopefully none.
4
Left out the three most important things: Stay off drugs, avoid excess alcohol, and don't be promiscuous.
21
And its notto late to use this advice!
SEE www.onedayu.com
Want to get more out of college? Don’t go, until you know why you’re going. We don’t need more people with “global studies” or “criminal justice” degrees who end up as unskilled labor, waitstaff or retail “associates”.
7
Any conversation with condoleeza rice would have been better spent discussing warcrimes and lack of legal accountability.
11
What is interesting, and what Mr. BRUNI does not tell us is that most of those teaching at the college, university levels today are adjuncts, part time instructors. Cheaper for the institution, easier to sack, and don't cause a fuss. Second, that, grosso modo, preoccupation of professorat these days r not the students, but their own research, as well as outside gigs on the lecture circuit. Could not care less about the students:sad but true!Attended 3 schools: Wesleyan, U. of Alabama and Tulane. Best was U. of A in Tuscaloosa, with 1 of the finest classics departments in nation, giving the lie to notion that all southern schools were 1 step removed from the football field.Recall words of Bill Fairchild who taught us Latin: "Latin is a dead language for those who are dead from the neck up!" It was also at U. of A that I learned to write and had pieces published in RAMMER JAMMER , a humor magazine, on, surprisingly, local White Citizens Council meetings I attended thanks to Leonard Wilson, student expelled from university for role in Autherine Lucy riots year before I arrived in 1957.Dave Mathews, who went on to become HEW head in Ford admin., then university president ,lived down the hall.I went on to graduate from Tulane, but my heart was in Tuscaloosa!But I digress. Too much jargon in this article."Prioritize" Mr. BRUNI? As the editor of the Kansas City Star told the young Ernest Hemingway,just out of high school: "Just write in plain old Anglo Saxon English!"
2
Read! Read! Read! That’s my advice to any entering college freshman. It’s the only period you’ll likely have in your life in which you can spend countless hours doing just that.
To start off with, don’t miss Thomas Kuhn’s "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" ( popularly called "Structure"), a fascinating romp showing how scientific theories develop. Caused a sensation when it first came out (1962). Can be read over a weekend. Read some of Kafka’s works such as "The Trial" and "The Castle", and attempt to figure out why this European writer was and continues to be so influential. To me, he remains an unfathomable enigma.
Widen your horizons. That’s ultimately what college is really all about. Peer into the world of Islam. Why has it become a force to be reckoned with in our time? Why is it undergoing a cataclysmic transformation as it enters the modern world? Can it succeed? Read Bernard Lewis’s "What Went Wrong" and "Islam and the West" to get an idea what this subject is all about. Forget about trying to “read the Koran” as many suggest. It’ll lead you nowhere. That’s like advising someone to read the Bible to explain the US Civil War.
Become familiar with European history and its foundations. Huizinga’s "The Waning of the Middle Ages", a superb encounter with a distant time and place, will introduce you to this murky period.
The important thing is to read. Explore, taste and imbibe. Don't wait for others to show you the way.
37
One of the best thing Bruni’s ever written.
I sent it to my college kids - but alas they didn’t read it. They think they know better. Typical.
16
As a career college advisor at CollegePrepExpress in WeHa, CT, I very much appreciate this article, especially its emphasis on finding mentors. Here is a blog post I wrote on how to get the most of of college that doesn't even address the exercise in credential acquisition! http://collegeprepexpress.com/2014/07/22/leaving-soon-for-college-dr-yos...
2
From what I've read about your college years, you seem to have been the non-joiner who blamed the jocks for being "homophobic."
And the left-winger with an agenda who was always ready to pounce on anyone with a different point of view.
So I'm not surprised to see you once again take a superior position in advising young people how to deal with their youth.
And I hope every one of them ignores you.
7
It's funny how, 41 years after I graduated from a SUNY school, so little has changed in what undergrad students face, despite all the technical and social changes in that time.
As an 18 year old, I didn't have a clue about what I wanted to do with my life, just insecurities and an out-sized ego. Luckily, a double-major was right for me--two distinct, unrelated areas of interest. Few of my peer knew what they wanted. My roommate wanted to be a doctor. He had everything you'd want in a doctor, compassion, attention, dedication. Unfortunately, he didn't have the grades and transferred out after 2 1/2 years. I hope he finally became an MD...
College is the one time in your life that you will have a chance to engage in the vastest range of social interactions you'll ever have. People of all interests and ideas, chances to form personal, professional and even intimate relations with others, chances to learn from older, wiser people who, hopefully, love to teach.
You'll even learn from the bad professors and instructors. I had a creative writing prof who was a moderately famous poet, who was a miserable human being, who blatantly favored pretty, unmarried women who didn't threaten his ego (not their fault--they didn't encourage it). His grading was capricious -- he gave a "B" to a married woman whose writing was so gripping Anne Sexton (Yes, that Anne Sexton) published her work during the course of the semester. I learned what NOT to do or be from him!
8
Frank Bruni’s beautifully written article, “How to Get the Most Out of College,” reinforces the advice given by six undergraduate panelists to Washington, DC-area rising freshmen at our annual Cornell Club of Washington Frosh Send-Off Supper held one week ago at my home. Interacting with faculty was one of the key topics discussed by the panelists, with suggestions to go regularly to office hours, ask questions of professors after class, participate in professors’ research, and ask professors to become mentors. My husband made a video of our send-off party and posted it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ztgGk6EJy3k We have been hosting these frosh send-off parties for over 40 years, and the advice about interacting with faculty is preeiment.
7
I've been teaching writing and literature for nearly 40 years, 20 of them at a prestigious private college, 18 of them at a public institution. The students at both institutions are the same mixed bag of skills, aptitudes, and interest levels. The private college students, however, had much of the mentoring provided for them. Opportunities for internships and academic counseling were manifestly and pointedly available. At my non-elite college, few of my students are accustomed to visiting with teachers or advisors. Professors must actively require that students come to office hours - and not all students are comfortable with developing a one-on-one relationship with their teachers.
I'll begin the term by asking students to read this article. Most of my first-years won't know words like "prosaic" and "optimal," but they will be able to suss out the importance of being actively engaged in the multiple planes of their college experiences.
11
This should be required reading for rising juniors in high school. And parents should commit it to memory and push back against institutional education that is being forced to bend toward accountability; emphasizing the need for boxes checked, measurements achieved, and formulaic success.
Kids are arriving at college having spent years practicing a strategy for success that will exhaust and fail them once they finally have the opportunity to discover and explore. We've prepared them to be terrified of doing what will reveal the greatest reward: self-determination.
11
Many years back when my son and I were touring his college an Advisor sat with us, He went on to talk about the Future. He looked at my son and said the majority of people will go thru 3 careers and 7 jobs during their working lifetime. I sat there as a 53 years old man calcalated my life. Wow! this guy is right on. I was working in my third carrer and Seventh job. (btw I'm not a College Grad). I wish I read this article 15 years ago.
4
An excellent article. Some of the professors were inspiring. And the result was a view that a
college degree was a learners permit. And it horned an insatiable desire to read an explore my curiosities and it continues to this day.
5
I have sent this to all my students and colleagues with the urging that it be circulated to all 109,000 students enrolled at Arizona State University this semester, including over 10,000 freshmen. Congratulations to Frank Bruni!
12
I've taught first-year students for nearly 30 years at a non-elite small private college. So I've dealt with thousands of them over that time.
Frank Bruni has done here what the Times so rarely does in its coverage of college searches and selections: He acknowledges that the vast majority of kids aren't Ivy-bound, aren't obsessing over their college-selection choice, and aren't ready to freak out if they must, god forbid, accept admission to an 'ordinary' college. Most students have modest grades; their parents often are clueless about the function or higher education and how to succeed once there; and an alarming number of students can't tell you the difference among liberal arts colleges, community colleges and research institutions. New students usually driven to our schools by the pressures of money and financial aid, by the ability to continue athletic careers, and too often by peer pressures. Many choose wrongly.
More important, this piece goes well beyond the cliched advice that every high school counselor, parent, older sibling, and — frankly — me give them every fall. So it's going to be on my reading list for my first-year seminar course that launches in just a few days.
11
Excellent article, Frank. I was the first member of my family to graduate college, going to an Ivy League school on a partial scholarship, and I unknowingly did a number of the things you recommend - building relationships with professors and getting involved with campus life - which added immeasurably to my experience.
One thing you neglect to mention is the power of studying abroad. I spent a year at a university in Scotland, and - never having been on a plane before - it opened the world to me. Exposed me to new ways of thinking and living my life. Introduced me to my future wife, and led to our living in four countries, and visiting 30 more. Not bad for a person of limited means from Queens, NY.
Incidentally, my undergraduate degree was in history - an otherwise "useless" humanity. With it, I learned how to synthesize information and write reasonably well. Skills that have been far more useful to me than the MBA I later received, even though that was what opened the door to a fulfilling business career.
College is the perfect opportunity to grow into your fullest potential if you are open to taking risk and getting out of the familiar. Studying abroad is an opportunity I'd urge anyone to consider.
32
Frank knocked it out of the park, again. Great words and advice for college students, a their parents. Thank you for writing this as I pack up my daughter for freshman year.
10
As a longtime college professor recently retired, I couldn't agree more with Bruni's points about the importance to any student of establishing and sustaining faculty mentors. I cherish these relationships that continue to last beyond a student's time at the university. But as someone whose office hours were often too lonely, I blame the emphases on skill acquisition; online learning; and most of all on the contemporary university's devaluing of faculty, who have come to be seen as replaceable and interchangeable when "delivering" instruction. At my own institution there have been many examples of such--the strangest of which have been promotional website videos in which the university president appears prominently (with his wife) interacting with students in various settings and where no faculty are ever seen.
10
Unfortunately, too many students come to college so academically unprepared that college functions just as catch-up to what high school should have taught.
9
No mention of the ubiquity of binge-drinking and its cumulative cascade of effects on college students?...The normalization of binge-drinking as the core of campus social life colors--and harms--the experiences of countless young people. Some of the effects are visible, immediate and ugly, while others seep into one's being, perceptions, values and habits. As I watch hordes of drunk young people weaving around my college-adjacent neighborhood every weekend, I wonder how many of them are, or will become, full-blown alcoholics. They call it "the full college experience"...
14
Some pretty wise comments here. The emphasis on turning college into trade schools is disturbing. Slowly making educated folks more narrowly educated.
7
My father drove a truck his entire life and delivered potato chips to grocery stores, bars etc. One winter day when I was 10 years old during a howling blizzard in Nebraska my father went out to his truck at 5 am (his usual time to go to work) and discovered that his rear tire was flat. My bedroom door flew open and I was drafted into helping him change the tire. My fingers went numb, my face burned and even though I was bundled up my cheeks got frostbite. During this ordeal my father turned to me while reattaching a lug nut and said "Do you want to do this for your entire life? Now you know why you need to go on to college and get educated". Of all the high minded lectures I have heard regarding getting an education this statement left the deepest impression on me. To put food on the table, have a decent roof over my head and raise my family in a comfortable safe surrounding was my motivation for a higher education. It is hard to appreciate fine art, history, philosophy and great literature when you are holding down 2 jobs paying minimum wage. Take your higher education seriously and never forget the importance of obtaining the hard skills that will provide you a living in a world that is becoming more competitive with each passing generation. I cringe every time I read about students who are strapped with tens of thousands of dollars of debt after majoring in subjects which provided little or no economic value in today's job market.
15
If you are not studying science, engineering, finance, accounting, or insurance, college is a waste of time and money.
The better option for those incapable of mustering the requisite dedication it takes to achieve in these areas would be to enlist in the Armed Services.
5
@Told you so you are missing the point! If we filled our world with just those professions and not art, creativity or Justin plain thought what a terribly boring world it would be!
12
There is a great book that spells out exactly how to get the most from college called Launch Your Career in College by Dr. Adele Scheele, available on Amazon. We give it to every college-bound student we know and recommend that they --and their parents--read it.
If you engage with the school, don't forget the lazy river and churascarria or you will miss out on the things that help to make the cost of college increase at a rate that far outstrips inflation. and the ability of most people to attend without having a full time job or ridiculous amounts of debt.
How to get the most out of college:
1. Take courses in a wide variety of areas. Don't take courses in a single area because you plan to work in that area. College is for education, not vocational training. You can train for a job later.
2. Study hard. This is your one chance to spend all of your time focusing on your mind. Don't blow it.
3. Don't study so hard that you never have any fun.
4. If you graduate realizing how much you still don't know, if you are ready to spend the rest of your life continuing to learn, you will have gotten your tuition's worth.
13
Surprised no mention of alcohol/drug abuse during the college years and the many problems that result. I’m pretty sure binge drinking shaved about half a percentage point off my GPA and just caused a lot of angst and misery.
6
When I was in college I had a film series in which I invited a professor to,discuss the film with the students after watching them. Sometime it was not the professors field. One of the most memorable was President Goheen discussing Lord of the Flies
2
We educate the wrong people. We used to select students based on merit to a much larger degree. Govt. scholarships and grants were available for intelligent children from the rural and urban working classes. Now the college educated are drawn mostly from the wealthy white conservative suburban communities. What remains of merit is a few tokens used for PR purposes by institutions bent on ever expanding their endowments. This privileged grads are credentialed not educated. The characteristics of their communities culture — infantilization, classism, racism, vanity — all are on the rise with them. unless we return to a pre-Reagan type of financing based on merit, that will all continue. This social class the students are now mostly drawn from won many elections (not all of them fairly) in order to make college what it is for them today — a stamp of approval bought and sold. They pay to have a charmed life ever after being credentialed as "superior". Most of the values passed over in this piece will remain unknown to them. They are not truly educated. They are upper class consumers. This is a substitute for an educated citizenry, which suits the new politics just fine.
4
There is one glaring omission. I would strongly advise young men to avoid fraternities. Bruni wisely advises to avoid "following friends from high school or people whose demographic backgrounds match your own" but fails to follow through. The fact of the matter is that in loco parentis is dead and your sons are in danger in fraternities where drug use, including diverted ADD meds, cocaine, and opiates is rampant and where your sons may ease the pain, shame and depression of brutal hazing with these drugs. Of course, the fraternities themselves represent everything you should not be doing when you go to college and significantly interfere with intellectual growth, academic pursuits and a search for strong lifelong mentors and replaces it with heavy drinking, drug use, brutal hazing, snobbery and the fostering of a closed mind.
19
When they begin college I intend to tell my sons what nobody ever told me; enjoy learning.
7
Thanks, Frank. I wish every entering first year student read this. I certainly would have benefited from this many moons ago. Our youngest will in a few moments find it among his texts. Great job.
2
An excellent collection of advice Mr. Bruni. I have 15 nieces and nephews and 3 grandchildren. Some headed to College right now. I will discuss with them.
This is also a reminder that many of these ideas can be practiced after College. Today we all hear about the importance of lifelong learning. It's not just a career or job imperative; it's an opportunity to more fully enjoy living in our communities.
1
Seeing too many students pressured to get that degree, as if it was a certificate of enrollment and attendance rather than an article of learning and education – as in "just get me that degree – and I want an A" – and I will learn everything I need after I graduate.
"Many don’t have the luxury: College for them is a slapdash scramble to grab credits as they can while working a demanding job, caring for family members or both. More than a third of the students enrolled in higher education in this country attend two-year institutions. Those at four-year institutions often don’t participate in the romantic ideal of nurturing dormitories and verdant quadrangles. They live with parents. They pray for parking."
And some do not even have that luxury. Was Free College for All that ridiculous?
9
As an educator, I appreciate this column, but I also would like to point out that not all college students have the time or freedom to pursue what the public views as "the college years." We have students who are older, people of color, transgender students, and those worried about deportation. Many students have to work to support themselves, some actually have families to take care of, and others have disabilities to contend with, and some are even homeless; so there really is no average college student these days. The best part of this column is the isolation issue and for students to seek mentors. That advice is solid among the changing demographic of today's college students.
7
One of the central purposes of going to college is to learn how to think, how to process and evaluate information, reconcile different viewpoints or ideas and develop nuanced, sometimes conceptual frameworks for thinking about issues and topics. The recent trend of mollycoddling, helicoptering by parents, seeking out "triggers" and "safe spaces" to hide from them, all get in the way of benefitting from the opportunity. Seeing faculty as peers also has a downside, especially when everyone thinks Google makes them an expert and the culture encourages equal value for all viewpoints. These phenomena hinder getting the most out of college just as much as the points raised by Bruni are sure to make a positive difference.
6
I teach high school and in my AP Lit. and Comp. class, Bruni is as important a text as Faulkner, Joyce, and Toni Morrison. When I look back on my undergraduate and graduate school days (UC Santa Cruz, The Berklee College of Music, and Columbia University)--and also in my professional career as a musician, educator, and writer--it was most often mentors and fellow students who helped me or motivated me along the way. (I still regret not visiting Carter Wilson, a brilliant professor at Santa Cruz when I was there in the mid to late Seventies.)
What many anxious students, stressed out and feeling they must be perfect, fail to develop today are listening and speaking skills--in-person social skills--that might lessen the burden they feel both inside and outside the academy.
10
OK...thanks, but so pretentious. Sorry.
2
It depends on what you want. I wanted to get in med school, drink beer, and spend fun times with young ladies. So I spent my time with organic chemistry books, Coors, and those young ladies who would have me. Worked out pretty well.
12
@vbering - this is the best and most honest, realistic comment here.
5
As a university professor, at a state university in California, which largely serves first generation, ethnic minority students - survivalism can impede the ability of students to use university what it is best for - not rote learning, not job training - but expansion - of soul, psyche, mind, potential, and sociality. I do tell students to come find me, talk to me - it is very impressive (and fun!) when a student takes the time to do so - even if it is a 5 minute walk to the (crowded) parking lot. College/University represents one of the only times in a person's life where critical discourse is welcomed, you get exposed to people with a range of opinions, and learn to hear diverse points of view and critically analyze your own. It will never happen again in such a consistent manner since most workplaces will force a more narrow worldview, and because our own social networks are comprised of people whose opinions tend to be similar to our own. This article will be part of our day one reading packet when classes begin on Monday!
13
@Angry professor Dear Angry Professor, I graduated from CSULA 45 years ago where I did everything Mr Bruni suggested today. I shopped professors, visited their office hours to chat and to learn. I became life long friends with many of them. Only one is still alive, alas, but we still talk on the telephone. I got the best education at CSULA, had the happiest life and most personally rewarding career because of the doors to learning and experience that my professors opened for me. Professors are the greatest resource to learning. That's why they are there, but a student has to choose which ones are right for them and then don't be shy. Thank you profs, all.
12
Advice from article: Be perfect
Reality: University is a time to learn, grow, and make mistakes. That means ignoring the advice of people who grew up in the 70s.
5
That's just the first verse, Recent Grad, the song of life has many more, as you will learn. Some of them too soon, others too late.
4
@Recent Grad
Dear Recent.
Placing an entire class of people in an empty basket and suggesting they have no guidance to offer suggests that learning and personal growth is still likely an offering you haven't fully availed yourself to. Mistakes happen to me and to you throughout our time on this earthly adventure, and I hope (sincerely) that you don't consider this letter as one of them.
5
Stay away from 70’s stupid people. It rubs off.
3
As a "non traditional" student in the College of General Studies at Columbia University, I would add a few more notes. Mentorship can also come from a fellow student, grades are not valuable metrics for achievement, and learning how to learn will be some of the great takeaways of going to college. And if you can keep going to school after you graduate. Audit classes everywhere or enroll as students for adult education. Learning should never stop.
10
Success in college, as in any endeavor, can be had with three simple steps (which I told my students in my teaching at four different colleges and universities:
1. Show up.
2. Follow instructions.
3. Get the job done.
It's not rocket science. Unfortunately, the students that are not successful don't follow this advice.
Other advice from my college professors:
Don't worry what your major is. It makes little difference, even if you want to be a doctor or lawyer or whatever.
1. Pick something you think is interesting.
2. Do well at it.
3. Get to know 3 professors in the classes you excelled at. Most professions involve graduate school, and you must have some recommendations.
5
The best advice I ever got from a college advisor during my undergrad years was that I “could be more than one thing”. I completed my pre-med requirements and got a BA in American Literature. The first gave me a career of the mind, the second gave me a life of the heart.
11
@Scott WilliamsExcellent advice. My cousin had been fast-tracked through UCLA on a government grant because she was a math prodigy. In our middle age we attended a production of Hamlet. As we found our seats she said, "Now don't tell me how it ends." She was not kidding. 16 years of going to college full time....but no time for Hamlet.
6
All the good advice holds for life after college as well.
Pushing into unfamiliar activities and ways of thinking. Not getting stuck in life patterns.
Honoring one's passions and making time to pursue them even though it may be for a small slice of one's time.
Making connections with others and sharing experience and expertise. Being open to the most important pathway to happiness and success: the myriad ways our relationships with others offers opportunity and personal growth and satisfaction.
There is no life without this. Move outside yourself. Connect! It changes you.
Personal health habits.
It's not that hard to make healthy food and activity choices.
And, of course fun.
In big doses. Go and enjoy something.
One can reframe many of life's challenges and see them with a sense of lightness and a philosophical acceptance as we try to improve.
I find that staying connected to the love and support of friends is a real key to happiness.
Find the time and make it a part of living.
Thanks Frank for stimulating good ideas, thought and discussion. You are a treasure.
10
I am afraid that the worship of money and material growth in our society has left the more interesting and rewarding pursuit of curiosity and knowledge far behind.
7
Fantastic article. I just forwarded it to my older son, a college junior, and set a reminder to send to my younger son, a high school senior, in about a year.
The point about developing mentors cannot be over stated. I’ll add one point from my personal experience. Though building faculty members into mentoring relationships is critical, students can also look to their peers to build such relationships. My best mentors in college were two friends that graduated one year ahead of me - and I still consider them best friends and mentors to this day.
10
Sent to our daughter starting at Georgia Tech and asked her to print it out and save it to read again and again over the next few years. Thank you.
4
Phenomenal piece. A must read for every student before the start of the academic year. Important for students to be intentional, engaged and committed. Engaged students who build communities will have a more fulfilling and meaningful experience they will carry with them for years to come.
10
Great piece! The value of storytelling cannot be understated
3
@Michael - you are right; good storytelling, as in creating fiction, cannot be understated. But what Bruni is talking about here is just another form of salesmanship, which has taken hold of our social media-obsessed culture. Everyone creating and curating a successfully "pitched" storyline for his/her life, career, relationship. I have noticed that it gets in the way of people telling what we used to call the truth, which now seems inconveniently spotted with imperfections and flaws. Not everything is about persuasion - the best stories are the ones that hit at the gut level..
3
Teach children the skills of deep introspection and the navigating will be easier. But the US in general finds deep thinking, and deep introspection icky.
Popeye's, "I am what I am!", is the more accepted refrain, POV.
We teach children by not teaching them better, that who they are is mostly external to them. That they can wear their personality, take it off a shelf, and present it to the world as their inner self. By wearing X and Y, approved by marketers, you are a cool and essential part of the "Team." (look at the back to school adverts where kids are walking fashion show runway-like down the hall, to applause!)
We let children become their on-line avatars. Instead of the online presence reflecting a small and edited version of who they are, we let them - thru parental negligence - turn the thing into a monster that attacks them. Very Frankenstein like. They know they cant live up to their created online persona. Certainly can't compete with the better, more perfected, more crafty ones of their peers who master the art of the Edited, best face all the time Social Media culture.
We let them inflict that on themselves, at the very ages when they are most vulnerable to the arrows of what others think about them. Or in this age of "Liked or Not Liked", don't think about them!
America simply does not do Introspection, personally, or culturally. Deep thinking and Introspection is uncomfortable, but necessary. Learn how and Life's rough seas are more easily navigated.
8
I am a rising senior in high school and many commenters argue that I should take time to explore and not succumb to parental or economic pressures of what I should pursue. As much as I would love to do so, I feel the need to pursue a career that will lead to definite employment and financial stability. It's difficult as a low income student to explore and study what you want in college when you know that you do not have anyone to fall back on and that you likely graduate in debt.
College does not guarantee employment and I worry that if I do not pick a major in STEM, I will not be able to afford the rising costs of life. I have to think not only of supporting myself in the future, but also of supporting my family members.
14
@Sal
I hear you Sal. I take courses at my local State University every semester, am retired in my 60's. The students there are a diverse group, but many are deeply concerned about their economic futures and struggle to meet their financial and familial obligations. I have great respect and affection for them.
I missed so many opportunities in my own college years, and I regret it so much, as my life would have been much richer in quality (not necessarily monetarily). But I was just not emotionally ready or courageous enough to put myself out there, and had no mentors to encourage me do push myself in new directions.
I encourage you to take electives, which are available to every major, that are way outside your chosen field, like Mr. Bruni suggests. Take them with the best professors in their departments, who are student centered, and would be supportive of non-majors. Great professors would love to have you, introduce yourself to them. Your perspectives are important to others in the class. Speak them. Don't be intimidated. Ask questions. Attend meetings of campus groups you empathize with. And, learn how to relax with good stress reduction strategies along the way. Best of luck!
11
The lone piece of academic advice I gave to my son when he left for university was to sit center in one of the front rows of any lecture hall. It then becomes a small class, when it's just you, the professor, and the other students in the front. He followed that advice, and because the professors then got to know him by name, he felt very comfortable going to their office hours (sometimes for assistance, sometimes just to say hello). Doing this from his very first class as a freshman set him for for an incredible experience. A professor tapped him to become a teaching mentor, and his first internship later turned into a full time summer job. Paying his college tuition has been money incredibly well spent. His 2019 graduation will be bittersweet, as he's had a wonderful education.
14
I graduated early from high school, worked a couple of years, enlisted in the army, married and then attended Princeton in the late 70s. An assistant dean at the University was a West Point graduate. We would sit and talk about how much more profound our military experiences were than those we had, or were having, at our elite institutions. Life is about profound experiences. To this day I still feel a deeper connection to a fellow veteran that I do a fellow Princeton alum.
7
Awesome piece! Colleges should be required to give this to students every year, and maybe more often, in a way that ensures it’s sinking in.
2
After graduating from an excellent prep school, where he was on scholarship, my son took a gap year and worked at Home Depot for minimum wage.
He went on to a top college with something very special: an understanding of how fortunate one is to have an education, and to honor that privilege with a positive attitude and hard work.
He has done well in his life since, and the bedrock of his success, I believe, is embracing opportunities with a healthy dose of gratitude.
9
The college and the university are overrated. If you're truly brilliant, another Einstein, a Gauss or a Euler, a Michelangelo or a Leonardo, then you don't need to go to college or university, especially when you're young.
Get yourself a trade or a craft. Earn some money. Don't get married or have kids. Read proper books. Go and live in another country. Become fluent in at least one more language.
I taught myself everything I know about mathematics, classical physics, chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, physiology, geology, history, Latin and Greek from selfstudy using textbooks, new and second hand.
If you can't teach yourself, then you're not bright enough to really benefit from university anyway.
7
If you didn’t go to college, then you really can’t make the comparison.
4
@Colenso
To say if one is truly brilliant one doesn't need college, is the equivalent of saying if one is truly a brilliant athlete one doesn't need technique or coaching to reach their full potential.
It's the height of arrogance to believe that an individual can't use higher education to build a foundation of knowledge or enhance knowledge they already have.
There is nothing wrong with learning on you own but one of the best things about college is it gives you the tools to learn how to learn.
4
Thank you for a perfect article for college bound folks! We definitely will share and discuss the content with our kids.
1
I wish someone had told me NOT to pursue a romantic relationship to the exclusion of making many friends. That boyfriend is long gone, I didn't make a lot of friends in college. Luckily I still have strong relationships made before college and in grad school.
7
The view is based on 38-years in higher education at private and public universities. To achieve full value a student must engage in the intellectual cross-training provided by the university be actively engaging in the classroom education (theory, lecture, research, active learning); the campus education through participation in student organizations, intramurals, academic clubs; and the community education through community service, service learning, internships and co-ops. If a student elects to only participate in one of the three then they leave two thirds of their education potential untapped.
6
Don't get a "degree" in anything that ends in "Studies."
Live at home and work part-time to pay for your college education. It will be your financial as well as academic accomplishment. Take summers off from school to work and save more. Enjoy relatively inexpensive activities like days at park, beach, mountains, concerts, etc.
Involve yourself in service organizations more and parties less.
Take a class in a sport every term for exercise, socializing, and fun.
5
This piece offers excellent advice. Based on 40 years of “professing” at three prominent Universities, two public and one private, I can say unequivocally that I was underutilized by my students. Also, I would say that many of the students who visited me during office hours were more interested in who I knew (Do you know anyone at Deloitte?) than what I knew (What is the most important lesson about leadership that you teach?). Yet, there are a few students, over the years, who really invested in establishing a relationship. I still follow them, and they make me proud.
14
I understand the opportunity to learn at your institution as a jump start to be intellectually open and emotionally open to others and I was able to be part of that type of mentoring when I was a freshman. The onus is on the student in your essay and while I applaud those that are capable of doing that, my situation was different. I was in a required public speaking class and was miserable and terrible at it. After a horrible presentation, my professor approached another student and I to work with him on ability to be comfortable speaking up. While I probably got a C in the class, which I deserved, it was a start. Cultures and situations can be very different for students and while I was privileged to work part time only, the very students you also mentioned who work full time and need to find occupations where there is a JOB at the end, my belief is this must start at the lowest level- Elementary school.
4
When I attended UC Berkeley and UCLA as an undergrad in the 1970s it was clear that a) the university didn't care about my success and b) lower division classes were designed to wash people out, particularly pre-med students. I did well and graduated with honors but ended up opting for a first career as a photographer, where my economics degree meant less than nothing. Moreover, the analytic left-brain processes I learned as a student were ill suited for right brain activities. I had to learn to think less and feel more.
I didn't engage with my professors or join clubs. In retrospect I wish I had. But it wouldn't have changed anything. I still would have become a photographer and those connections would have been pretty much useless.
In photography I made great connections by hustling and cold calling, first as an assistant, then as a studio and editorial photographer. That same process of hustling and cold calling has served me well in my second career as an entrepreneur.
I've made life changing connections with people at trade shows, bars, flying coach on airplanes and buying surfboards. Two of my best friends came from business and neither went to college at all.
College is a great place to make connections and meet mentors. But it isn't the only place. Not by a long shot.
15
I agree with much of what you wrote, but it is important not to overlook the real value of a college education: it can provide one of the best opportunities to teach a person how to think independently. Not easily accomplished outside an academic setting.
2
@Mike Marks
I had a psych professor this summer who is an ex-professional photographer. How would you know that if you didn't get to know him outside of the lecture hall? Turns out he started with an interest in photography, learned skills and took advantage of resources available to him by working on the college paper, and then used those connections to free lance.
Excellent article. The race to college admission has made students expert at gaming the system while being completely different in their personal, social and social media lives. Too many students today are too focused on grad school and career, or on home and financial responsibilities; they are still trying to game the system. College is an opportunity to develop and integrate elements of one's personality, to experiment with possibilities, to respond to the call of curiosity. Professors have trodden the same path as students, and have watched hundreds or thousands do so with more or less success. They are resources as much as the library, the lab, the theater, the artist and creation spaces, the gym -- take advantage of them.
3
It is true that some parents are not interested in or curious about their children's college experiences. I never got any feedback that I now know I desperately needed at the time. When poor grades, changes in majors and disciplinary issues come up, some parents do not explore these matters enough, taking a "hands off" approach. That is a mistake. There are too many college freshman/women looking at college as mostly a lifestyle experience, which can lead to the lack of seriousness the columnist argues for. Plus, we send too many youth to college who are just complying with the college agenda of the parents, but whose behavior belies the fact that they are not ready for/interested in college.
7
Three years ago we sent our son off to college - I with words of motherly advice; my husband with a pat on the back to do well and have fun. After reading your article and forwarding it to both of my now college-aged kids in vain, I revisited my own advice from three years ago. I missed the point about getting to know a faculty member, probably because I went to one of the elite schools you mention in your article thirty some years ago and professors were largely (at least to my young mind) unapproachable. Here's my list for what it's worth:
1. Make your bed every day. It takes 30 seconds to pull up the covers on a twin bed.
2. Get some exercise every day (walking to class doesn't count). It will help you de-stress and recharge.
3. Eat 3 meals a day.
4. Go to bed before midnight. There's nothing good that happens after midnight that can't be done at an earlier hour or the next day.
5. Call your mother every week. She wants to hear your voice. So does your father.
6. Set aside one day of the week to do laundry, including your sheets.
7. Get out of your room to socialize. Don't rely solely on texting to communicate.
8. Call your sister every once in awhile. She is going to miss you.
9. Keep playing music. It will give you something to do that is familiar in an unfamiliar world.
10. Challenge yourself - physically, emotionally and intellectually - and don't worry about the outcome. It's the challenge that is important.
Love,
Mamma
47
People do college in different ways, based upon economic necessity.
College for me was a full tuition scholarship (thank you President Johnson) but I had to live at home and never got the immersion experience of the liberal arts curriculum.
I graduated in three years with a double major while working part-time, got married, bought a house. All if it was pure instrumental drive, rather than intellectual experience. I needed the money.
Then I got divorced and went to graduate school, while working full time. Nonetheless, I began to enjoy classes that challenged me intellectually, and find the study groups of grad students who cared about ideas more than grades. I moved in with a boyfriend in a colony of art students. I learned to listen, talk, think, read books, and get high as I began to really hear music, see art. I gained a glimmer of understanding of the political world and of civil and women's rights. Those were my "college years", delayed, but so liberating.
Now college would probably out of reach for young persons in similar economic straits. They would be urged to get an associate degree in an economically viable field and take a job. To these young people, I say, OK, but keep going! Find a life, and find yourself in the world of ideas...Avoid these awful killing drugs. Having lots of babies at an early age will not free you either.
Escape. It's worth it.
11
I AGREE WITH FRANK BRUNI'S Premise, that learning to network in college is essential. When I talk with people about how to get advance their careers, my advice is that they use their connections whenever possible. I spoke with a friend who lives in a community where 94% of the public high school graduates go on to compete four year degrees, yet 50% end up living at home because they can't find jobs in their fields. Meanwhile, there is a huge number of unfilled jobs in the computer field in Pennsylvania. So that means that it's essential for the school district to offer the opportunity to the high school students to earn a technical certification prior to graduation, whether during the summer or in a "gap year." To explore the possibilities, there are thousands of courses that students can audit free of charge to determine what would be a good fit for their talents. Another source of information would be the high school counselors. Often the student's focus is on going to a prestigious school rather than gaining marketable skills. For example, one of my nephews got training in installing fiber optic networks, which gave him many job opportunities. He earned a certification in that specialty, which has stood him in good stead. Ever the socially connected guy, he got a team of friends from his former high school who had similar skills. They were kept very busy by many businesses, such as supermarkets, by bringing them into the digital age. He did this without college.
3
So true. What 17 or 18 year old really knows what he/she wants to do in life. Over 30 years ago I applied to 5 elite colleges and one state “safety” without visiting any since my parents had limited money. The choice came down to the financial aid package. My expectations were out of synch with reality. It was a college full of super nerds. Not exactly not a nerd myself, I was also a two sport varsity athlete, young (having skipped a grade) and required to work 20 hours a week as part of my financial aid package. The good: I excelled in sports, held my own academically with little direction, managed two semesters abroad in Spain and Argentina, became a Spanish teaching assistant that built up my confidence of public speaking and met my future wife with whom we produced two very different kids: a curious and outgoing super kick and a brilliant asperger’s nerdorama. No regrets now, but those are hard years and mentorship is super important given how hyper competitive everything has become among the top 50 elite colleges and universities.
5
I went from a segregated, all-white school in the South in the mid-'60's to one the most geographically diverse academic institutions in the US--the Air Force Academy. To rooming with classmates from Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Georgia, and an exchange student from the French Air Force Academy first semester, senior year. Academic balance ? English, history, law, philosophy (!), a foreign language, international affairs, economics, together with calculus, chemistry, physics, and multiple engineering courses. At age 70 now, I'm grateful for that incredible opportunity to expand my world. A long USAF career afterward, living in eight states, and spending time working with the State Department, US Ambassadors, and military and government officials in over 30 countries was the end result of that USAFA beginning. Not for everyone, I recognize. But a great pathway from a blue collar working family in the South to a complex, interesting, ever-changing world for one.
14
Mr.Bruni, your mention of the benefits of knowing the school’s faculty rang so true.Decades ago my major was social anthropology but that was not my passion We were required to take a course in art history and I was fortunate to have courses with a professor whose specialty was Flemish Art.His courses and others in the art department have given me the greatest joy in the sixty years since I have graduated.I can’t imagine my life without the love of art which I acquired because we were required to take Art and because the professors were so devoted to guiding us to the joy of this subject.
10
Excellent advice. One caution overlooked by Mr. Bruni: professors also understand they have leverage in offering mentoring relationships with power to make or break careers, and a few bad apples will use that leverage to press students for sex. This doesn't mean that mentoring with faculty should be avoided because of potential for abuse but rather approached as a relationship with any work supervisor with radar up for problems. Students need to be taught to recognize grooming behavior, because abusers are very good at gaining trust initially; problems may emerge gradually.
9
@ClutchCargo
Good points I saw greater abuses of power in four years by college professors (sleeping with students, bullying, etc.) than by superiors in military or bosses in corporate during a 35 year career. Tenure does give a lot of power and learning to deal with it is another important lesson in ethics and survival skills.
6
What we call higher education in the USA is the final segment of secondary in the rest of the world. Too many people hang their hat on one or more degrees that certainly do not confer intelligence upon their holder. Too many people in America are admitted to college and water down the content and value of a degree to the extent that a 4-year degree is now essentially the same as a high school diploma 50 years ago. If our vaunted higher educational system were so successful at producing leadership skills and values, then why does the IT industry have to rely on H1B and H2B visa holders from South Asia to run? It can't all be reduced to lower wages...
6
The time to prepare kids for college should start in kindergarten. We have a lot of different kinds of kids entering college: overachievers, lost souls, unconfident beings, self critical perfectionists, partiers, thinking philosophers, focused planners, scatterbrains. Kids need to learn about how being different, being themselves (and finding out who they are) is important and good. Being comfortable own their own skin and given the tools to shed sadness, anger, un-helpful self criticism, escapism, and other behaviors that undermine their happiness and confidence and help them be good and thoughtful human beings. Mindfulness and other tools are essential for our young people and should be started in kindergarten. When a child is focused on negative coping mechanisms, they don't have the space to do and be positively. All the facts and concepts are a waste if kids aren't able to appreciate them because they are caught up in negative thinking. We need to make coping tools a priority in our schools well before kids start thinking about college. There is so much polarization and wayward thinking in our country. Let's help our kids be smarter in a way that helps all of us and our world.
4
"Navigate them with as much care as you did the path that got you there."
What's the advice for those who did not navigate their path to college with great care, but rather were children who went to school, grew up, did well enough to go onto college and now wish to find their future?
4
Whenever I have to hire a recent college grad, I look for people who seem energetic, excited to be at the interview, interested in asking and answering questions about themselves and the position and the whole organization, possessed of a sense of humor, and well read. I do NOT look for people who had "leadership" roles in college clubs, who seem intentionally to flatter me, to cultivate advantageous relationships, or who interact with others in order to "build social capital." Interesting internships on the resume do not impress me, as I know they are often quite empty in reality, as is "research." Give me a real, literate, articulate college grad, and I am happy to give him/her a chance.
17
The most frightening aspect of teens applying to colleges is the hob-nail boots brigade from progressive fascism actually looking at social media and making judgments on students.
A guy with matchless plusses was called up about his reading - nothing else, just that - Tweets from Alex Jones. If there is anything that will get states to cut support for a college FASTER than that, I haven't found it.
When great numbers of universities transitioned from places of asking hard questions to political training camps, our country lost more than many have yet to figure out.
4
Art, poetry, music and sport are more than pastimes. These are career choices as well.
5
I can say as a mental health professional that it is demonstrably damaging to young people that the college experience is constantly referred to as "pivotal" by society and the media. It places immense pressure on college students to act out because they think it's what they're "supposed" to be doing, and worst of all, it creates an incredible sense of inadequacy, regret, and shame within those who did not have the social experience that is often depicted in movies and social media.
It is okay to be a late bloomer. It is not the end of the world if your college experience isn't all that. We need to stop placing so much weight on this brief couple of years as if it completely defines one as a person. So much damage is being done to young people who feel like they are worthless or even resort to violence because they "missed out" on the picturesque college experience.
31
@Sarah Johnson
Fair enough Ms. Johnson. I believe Mr. Bruni's intentions are not to shame or pressure students but just the opposite, to support those students who don't attend the fanciest name brand schools. And, yes, as a late-bloomer, I totally agree with much of what you say. I'm not almost 61, and am teaching full time while I continue creating music and am now writing for a feature documentary which I am in love with. The journey hasn't always been an easy one, but I'm finding joy in many places today though I do worry about my two adult children who are starting out.
2
As a second-year medical student I developed severe depression and was well on the way towards destroying myself and my career. I went to see a faculty member in his office and told him simply and directly that I desperately needed help. It wasn't his office hours, I just walked in the door.He said, "Sit down, let's talk about it."
I met with him weekly for a number of months, pulled out of my tailspin and graduated at the top of my class. All this was more than 40 years ago and thanks to him I went on to an excellent career, wonderful family and now retirement. I was able to build on my experience and help many of my students who found themselves in similar straits.
Mister Bruni's advice is excellent. The main reason the vast majority of teachers choose a career in education is they care about the students. Take advantage of this and interact with them as much as possible. And, for goodness sake, if you need help ask for it, and do not be ashamed.
29
I enjoy Mr. Bruni's takes on college, but the very examples he uses in this article undermine his point, both here and in his advice book. He tells kids not to worry about where they go, yet the examples he gives here are of students who maximize their relationship opportunities while attending elite schools--Princeton, UNC-CH, UVA. Why not write more articles on those students who don't arrive at college already loaded with advantages instead create their own advantages? Interview the students at a small, inexpensive state school and talk about what they're doing to maximize their efforts without the huge financial support from home that many students at elite colleges get? This article lost me at the college name-dropping.
32
@Jennifer, totally agree and thanks for catching it. I often feel the advice academically oriented elite gives kids is somewhat self-serving. Go to a liberal arts college, study whimsical things, explore and come out like me- a wonderful, enlightened, politically grounded warrior for what is right. For lower class kids like myself that often is fools advice. I did many of the things Mr. Bruni advises and it worked out- I’m very blessed. However for kids seeking upward mobility this is not the pragmatic path, it’s filled with excessive debt, majors where you’ll be bludgeoned with a certain philosophy, lack of truly critical thinking and a degree that in and of itself is marginally marketable for the majority of graduates. The pragmatic path is a better fit, with career opportunity at the end of the road. Get involved with charities, civic organizations, and religious organizations to achieve what Mr. Bruni alludes to, and do it without indoctrination and navel starring.
11
@Martyvan90
I go to two universities, one elite, one urban. At the elite school, most of the students went to private school; at the urban school, most of the students work and/or have kids of their own. But both types of students benefit from having relationships with professors and from taking courses that expose them to new things. While the diploma is a credential that proves you can discipline yourself enough to jump through certain hoops, the future employer or graduate school is not buying the credential, it is buying the person behind it.
@romanette
Good luck with school and your career. I've been hiring college graduates into corporate America for 30 thirty years. We are, as you say, hiring the sum of people. A part is academic work and college experience. However please understand that beyond graduate schools the things you allude to aren't valued in the scientific/business worlds to the degree Mr Bruni and your professors will tell you. College is a wonderful experience- I've got two kids in university now and I encourage some of what Mr Bruni does. However a lot of it is fun not applicable to your career. Of all the things you can learn in college, a marketable major and critical thinking are the two most important. My daughter tells me the second is not valued to the degree it should be and I believe was thirty years ago. Again good luck in all your future endeavors.
This is generally good advice, and most colleges these days encourage and support such things as making contact with professors/advisers/mentors.
Several other suggestions:
Take courses that are basic courses for your most likely majors AND take some courses that stretch your interests and expand your possibilities.
Notice those students in your classes who want to learn and seem responsible and make contact with them.
Take an exercise class.
Don't sign-up for too many extra-curricular activities, but select one or two that appear worthwhile.
SCHEDULE your time. Assume you will get sick or otherwise distracted from your studies at some point, and get ahead (or at least keep up-to-date).
Break up your study-time so that you do not get drowsy.
Eat three good meals, and eat with at least one other person, in the cafeteria, not your room -- it will double as relaxation.
Keep in touch with your parents, but not on a daily basis.
Appreciate how fortunate you are to be in college, and do not think you are having it rough.
Enjoy learning, expanding your horizons, leaving your safety zone, and being in a learning community. Take a walk with a friend.
6
Bruni provides inadequate attention to how co-curricular experiences in campus clubs and organizations help students feel a part of a community, provide invaluable out-of-classroom leadership development experiences, connect them to a more diverse range of mentors, and provide unique opportunities to further develop their interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. A great deal of my success in life can be traced informally to what I learned from my involvement on the campus programming board and in student government, among many organizations.
2
I was the first in my family to go to college. I had to work for a year after high school to afford college. I lived at home, took the bus and packed my lunch. Luckily, my local college was the University of Toledo. I had lots of great teachers and lots of great classes like "Western Civiization", which tied together history, religion, politics, music, art, and inventions of each era and then showed how one era led to the next. The class tied together things I'd learned in other classes.
I took Art classes taught at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Some of my friends from high school had become involved in University Theatre, and I did too. I had small parts in the plays and one musical each year. At the end of each show, the cast and crew had to strike the set. Afterwards, two of the guys played guitars and we sang folk songs.
As members of University Theatre, the Toledo Symphony and Toledo Opera asked us to be ushers and then gave us free seats for the events.
I also took education classes and became a High School English teacher.
It was 4 wonderful and mind-expanding years! All my experiences at the University of Toledo made a shy, quiet high school student a much better teacher.
14
Vocational degrees are the only ones that make practical and financial sense. Picking vocations that reflect several options in application are the best. Drinking, drug use, oversleeping and irresponsibility do not count.
1
Dear Parents, your children are not Mini-Me's. They have dreams and talents that almost certainly don't match yours.
During my academic career, I always had a student or two whose parents had told them that business was the only acceptable major. This was the case even when the student had clear talents in other fields.
I also had students who would have benefited from a year overseas except that their parents told them that studying abroad would possibly delay their graduation and thus deprive them of a year's worth of lifetime income--as if spending a year absorbed in another culture isn't an experience beyond quantification.
It's ironic that parents will spend literally thousands of dollars providing their only moderately talented children with athletic opportunities and yet discourage them from studying the arts and humanities.
They think they're being practical, but in fact, the number of adults making a living various aspects of music, art, acting, or writing is much larger than the number of adults making a living in sports.
After earning a B.A. in one liberal arts subject, I went off in a completely different direction by taking up a subject that everyone considered weird and useless back in the day. It became a popular academic elective about ten years later, and for the past 25 years, I have earned my living in self-employment related to "weird and useless" area of study.
15
Some of the themes and main points that have emerged in the discussion forum:
Yes, we should approach College Strategically, after all there's much to learn from. Go visit office hours, says one professor, and take an interest in our work. Go introduce yourself to the professor during the first session, and develop a relationship throughout the semester, says another. Make the most of another class by working hard. And then there are the wistful remembrance by ex college graduates, and lamentations of what could have been have we read them.
As a second year student at a large research university, I am slightly overwhelmed by the amount of information on offer. I have tried to do a couple of these things, but it sometimes comes across as contrived.
While the advice provided are sound ( mostly), there should be a couple of addendums: Go talk to the professor only when you are genuinely interested in his/her work, and not because it is of strategic value; Go introduce yourself during the first lesson- but also participate actively and provide quality comments throughout the lesson( and not get away with thinking that a handshake will suffice for a meaningful relationship).
8
Every college student should read this excellent essay from time to time.
3
Thanks for sharing this perspective! We just dropped our youngest son off at college today (UNC Chapel Hill) and I'll share this link with him. When I was in school, I didn't clue in to the importance of office hours but I ended up developing a mentoring relationship with a Professor with whom I'm in contact with to this day. He's a great guy and has helped scores of other students along his many years in academia.
6
Pro-tip:
Skip Thanksgiving and Spring Break. Stay at school and get totally caught up on all work + get as far ahead in the work as possible.
Chill while others panic the last few weeks of the semesters ;)
7
@pjc
I disagree. Breaks are important and needn't be wasted intellectually. Being in a different setting promotes concentration and productivity. Being with old friends and family members can boost mental health. In addition, many college dorms shut down during vacations.
13
I wish I had read this article when I started college. It is too late for me now (I am near retirement).
1
@David Gold - Sir, it’s never too late! Retirement can be a wonderful second chance to explore ideas and interests you had to neglect while doing adult things like earning a living. If you choose, retirement can be like college without grades, and it need not be expensive: State colleges may allow retirees to attend classes gratis, neighbors start book clubs, libraries teach knitting, universities offer free concerts and lectures and open them to the community... You can tell from the list where my interests lie, but I’m sure there are similar opportunities for those inclined toward other areas.
And, if you have grandchildren, you will be showing them how to enrich their own lives.
5
Spot on! College of Wooster in the 1970s formed relationships with faculty, some of which continued for decades and were pivotal in opening doors and gaining confidence.
I wish I had befriended a mentor in college, but I was both shy and naive and didn't know how to go about it or how important it could be. That said, I did do two things not from this list that I think served me quite well, so I would add: also, study abroad if at all possible, and go to college away from home and engage in off-campus learning opportunities (for me, this included community service, tutoring, geology field trips, outdoor opportunities, and a local internship.) In general, work to broaden your horizons rather than tunnel-envisioning your future career.
3
re: "Relationships with faculty members was also an option, and it was the clear winner, placed near the top by almost all of the scholars and at the top by many...
This is, in my limited experience true, but I, a male faculty member, no longer venture to do this, for fear of being misconstructed as sexual harassment
There is no free lunch in life, sadly.
10
I am also a male college prof, most of whose students are women, and this is absurd. It is not difficult to avoid the perception of sexual harassment. Just keep your hands to yourself and act like a thoughtful adult.
3
@Gerhard Are you sure about that? I am inclined to reject your assertion that pushback against abuses of professorial authority make worthwhile professional—even personal—relationships with one’s students impossible.
I found this to be an intersection article. On the one hand, college is about relationships, broadening our thinking, growing through the diverse interactions that we are able to experience. On the other... I do believe it is critical to “pick a major.” College should provide a path forward to a career. At year 4 (not 6) a student should have a skill that affords them the chance to make a living... at the prices they charge; that should be the minimum expectation for any school.
My 2 cents.
One of the surprises about majors was a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the late 1970's early 1980's that showed that only 29 % of college graduates ever work in their majors.
Enjoy every day. Even when you’re not loving it. Because there’s others out there like me who never got the opportunity to go. And have regretted it ever since.
14
I gave my sons this advice as they went off to college:
College is like a cruise ship. It has all sorts of things for you to do. It has places to explore, places to learn, places to have fun, places to meet people, places to eat, places to rest. You can take advantage of everything it has to offer or you can just sit in your cabin. Either way, the cruise will go on, you will pay the same fare and you’ll reach your destination. But what will you have to tell about the journey?
36
“My focus is on optimal ways to socialize, to prioritize, to pick up skills integral to any career and to open up exciting opportunities both en route to a degree and after you’ve acquired it. Not nearly enough of the roughly 20 million Americans who are beginning or resuming college over the coming weeks pause, in their trepidation and exhilaration, to think about that.”
Well, sorry, but this seems a bit too wishy-washy to me. Reducing the focus on content knowledge from the college experience in favor of a “move into a peer relationship with the institution rather than a consumer relationship with it” shifts the focus away from primary purpose of an education. If one has the privilege to attend a four-year college, knowledge is still job one--studying hours a day to attain such. Keeping students in school need to be optimized.
Students have difficulties and drop out of college for quite a few reasons, but mainly due to the fact they just don’t buckle down and do the work. Optimizing ways to socialization is not an antidote to helping students that might be having a difficult time dealing with college life.
7
Good article but these studies about what was most relevant to previous students now successful misses to address that those students had attributes that already put them in the path to success (e.g. being driven, organized, adventurous, etc.). Working on a patent office won't make you closer to come up with your own theory of relativity.
3
I concur reading this I thought that he was speaking directly to me mirroring so many of the feelings I’ve had over the years
I’ve sent the column to my young cousin who will be entering college in the next few years and has already selected science as a major hopefully the attached article will encourage her to expand her curiosity to encompass all of the many subjects college has to offer
Thank you Mr Bruni
2
I always adore Mr. Bruni's writing. Sadly however, this is yet again someone from an older generation prescribing what me and my peers ought to do and ought not to do. Yes, there is wisdom and truth to his words. Yes, he touches upon the severe mental health issues my generation is suffering from - including here in The Netherlands. But in the end, this column is just another example of "do this in order to be successful", "five steps to build a better relationship with your faculty and have a more fulfilled college experience", and "learn from this particular successful person who did that and this - and mimic his/her actions".
We need space to learn from our own mistakes - not from those made by others. Space to make our own choices. Space to get to know our bodies and minds. And: the space to be irresponsible.
In none of the comments, academic staff - old or new - are examining their own behaviour. Sure, to be expected. But I hope to mind more compassion within these pages.
18
@Frank - You are exactly right!
1
@Frank
By your eloquent but somewhat misguided assessment, humankind would have never evolved or truly advanced from our primate ancestors.
Yes, do be irresponsible. However, growth occurs by getting your nose out of your navel and learning from those around you, particularly those who have earned a measure of wisdom.
Make mistakes, lots of them, for that is the crucible of character. Pay attention, also, to growth. All you have articulated is the immature confidence of a child.
1
@Frank -- However you do it, learning from other people's mistakes is more efficient and less painful than learning from your own. Space or no space, you'll make plenty of your own, but why be a masochist.
1
Excellent advice Mr. Bruni !
4
Drink less beer. Eat well. Sleep on a regular schedule. Don't own a TV. Live in cooperate housing. Learn to cook. Learn about plumbing. Kiss lots of people, but sleep with only a few. Talk to strangers. Be sincere. Work during the summer. Learn one foreign language. Learn one computer language. Learn to dance. Walk 2 miles or more everyday. No caffeine after noon. And call your mom for one hour a week.
142
Probably the best thing he has written in a long time.
1
Mr. Bruni offers great insights and wisdom especially for those beginning their college careers.
In my experience as a university teacher of sociology and social work, I always suggested a particular approach to students who were grappling with the choice of which university graduate program to attend:
First, select three or four of the most likely schools. Then check their catalogs to identify the faculty specializing in the your particular area of interest. Then contact those faculty by phone and request a half-hour meeting to explore the program. The most promising two or three of those calls, based on the faculty member's interest and enthusiasm, should result in a face-to-face meeting in which you interview the faculty member.
Your agenda for the interview is to determine the faculty member's capacity for empathy and interest in you as a person, a desire to discover your academic hopes and dreams, and to offer encouragement, time, and practical support.
My bottom-line advice to prospective graduate-school students: the program is the people! Go where people want to know you and actively support your academic and professional development.
4
My best advice is to declare a double major even if it means extra class time in the summer or an additional semester. It will never be easier time wise or cheaper in the future. This ends the anguish over the practical and employable major. It will distinguish you in some way in the work world and offer you more avenues because of double skills. Your mind will widen twofold.
Take down the stress. Get some good core skills like writing before college with a tutor or summer course or an intensive review of math.
No one gives you an education, you earn it. Learn to enjoy working for its own merit and its rewards. You are the beneficiary.
4
I recently spoke with an 18-year-old about to enter college. She said that her high-school algebra teacher was awful and she didn't learn anything. Her biology teacher was even worse. She worried that she was starting out with a disadvantage.
So I gave her this piece of advice: Take charge of your own education. If you find your textbook incomprehensible, buy another one. If your professor isn't getting through to you, form a study group, audit another professor, or take a similar course on, say, Coursera.
She responded that it sounded a bit like cheating to do those things. But it's not. Your professors want you to master your courses any way you can.
14
It shouldn't be long, anytime now--before parents will wake up en masse--and the entire idea of what college is supposed to be, will change--when the current model will suddenly seem ridiculous--even farcical.
No longer will seem to make sense--to send our children away, to incur a lifetime of debt, to stay in overpriced housing, attend overpriced classes--from overpaid professors, who cannot teach them anything about the real world--because they themselves don't live in it.
No longer will it make sense--to study valueless ideas and suffer wrong-headed indoctrination providing no meaningful guide for navigating life or the working world--which is what its supposedly all about.
Our colleges are increasingly becoming institutions of hate, intolerance, extremism--as so-called "professors", dispense so-call "knowledge", while wearing an air of gravitas--which students have no way of understanding, is sheer fraud.
The life of a professor--to go to school, more school, then more yet--then begin a career in "academia", having never left it--having never served in the military, never owned, operated, or even worked for a real business--having participated in the economy as consumers only--never having been asked to produce anything of real value--but yet somehow pretending to possess unquestioned knowledge about how the world works--and then passing off their ignorance as truth--to wide-eyed students too innocent to know the difference.
This all must change. Soon.
5
Guess what? Professors are employees that work for big organizations and live in cities and have mortgages and juggle work and child care and taking care of aging parents while dealing with the ever increasing and seemingly irrational demands of upper management while earning lower and lower real salaries. In short, we live in the real world and always have.
21
@Jo Marin. I am also a college professor who is late in my career. Half of my career was in the private sector and the second half has been in the Academy. Your comment is accurate but it needs to be understood in the context that has college professors we have summers, fall break, winter break, spring break, and and other times that are entirely unscheduled and available to use as we see fit. And my teaching load, which is fairly typical, has me in the class room about nine hours a week. My office hours and other meeting times are largely scheduled around my preferences. As a tenured professor I have extremely limited performance review oversight.
This context affects how many of our colleagues understand the world that most of my students will graduate in to when the leave college.
Further, my college offers very generous tuition emission options with over 500 other colleges and universities. What my daily paid to get my three children through school was 35% of the listed tuition, room, and board. For those of us with this benefit we are further distanced from understanding the financial burden other middle class families face in paying for higher ed.
@Jesse The Conservative,
Your comment doesn't bear any resemblance to the college where I teach. First, our first two years of college is free. Second, no professor is overpaid at my school. No one that I know is paid what they're worth. Third, the overwhelming majority of professors I know have worked and/or continue to work in their fields "in the real world." Lastly, the only hate I see comes from woefully ignorant, angry, FauxNews-watchers who criticize people they do not know and places they haven't been for decades, if ever.
5
It's worth quoting Polonius' advice to Laertes in Hamlet here, because what more does a person want out of College or Life:
"And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all—to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
3
Why isn’t military service ever at the top of anyone’s list? Less than 10% will find themselves in hostile environments and even fewer still will venture outside the wire. Those are better odds than growing up in Chicago.
3
@From Where I Sit
Because having someone tell you when to eat run and sleep is not really a very appealing proposition for most people who have other options.
11
@From Where I Sit
I've heard a lot of people who have good things to say about military service. However, you have no control over whether you are in that 10% who are in a hostile environment. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, are good reasons to avoid military service. The lessons that should have been learned 50 years ago are continually repeated.
2
@From Where I Sit
Because it is no fun not having legs!
I wish I had known what Frank Bruni so eloquently said when I was in college. I stayed away from Office Hours to avoid looking stupid. What a mistake. A few professors were true mentors, though I was fortunate enough to find superb mentoring in graduate school. Perhaps his column needs to be linked to Instagram or Snapchat so that the message gets to those who can make use of it the most.
4
Frank, I’m saving this for my two granddaughters, it’s wonderful. Also, the Husband and I saw you on CNN Friday evening. I told him to shut-up, so I could hear you speak. He’s very jealous and has accused me of having a crush. Yes, he’s very clueless, a natural born Engineer. Anyway, great job, as usual.
10
Chuckling here. Great job, Phyliss. You just showed how to be a great storyteller. I think you are very successful in your life. To the next generation-this is what Mr Bruni meant.
3
Trade schools will be the answer to the future. The next generation will be dealing with more economic and socio issues than you can shake a diploma at.
6
This is great advice. Which is the last thing my own boys wanted from me when they headed off to college. This was their time to explore according to their own agendas while finally being free of mine. They turned out fine. Nonetheless, this is great wisdom for those who are looking for it.
2
@M. Casey - I would worry about 18 year olds who are looking to middle aged parental types for advice as they leave for college. That tendency, to continue to look for help and guidance from parents, is more of a concern than the normal mistakes a college student might make based on his/her own flawed decision-making. How else can anyone learn but to make mistakes of all kinds - romantic, academic, professional, etc.? Why is everyone giving them so much advice? Did any of us want all this advice when we were 18? I don't remember it that way at all!
1
It is disturbing that students and their families do not do their homework in selecting colleges. They look at ridiculous published rankings and without any thought or research try to gain admission to the highest ranked school on the list--often the school(s) with the lowest acceptance rate.
The reasons are varied. For some people getting into a "selective" school is a kind of trophy with bragging rights for the student and the family. For others they believe that merely attending the high-ranked school will guarantee success in life. They are chasing a "brand" rather than an education.
Of course these are extremely vacuous ways of thinking. What a student does in college is infinitely more important than what college the student attends. Students will do their best work in the setting where they are happiest. This means that the student and her/his family must know what schools fit their preferences for size, location and special programs. The best school is always the school that is best for the individual student--something both admissions officials and college counsellors call "goodness of fit." Schools are so unique, that finding the exact best match is entirely possible and desirable.
There are hundreds of excellent colleges in the United States and around the world where students, at the undergraduate level in particular, receive superb educations laying an excellent foundation for career success. Students and parents can be absolutely assured of this.
6
The way to get the most out of college is to recognize that it is perhaps the only time one has in life when one can completely lose one’s self in in the intellect and become a sponge, absorbing everything: literature, history, art, drama, music, film: winnowing as one goes along and, in so doing, providing fodder for friendships and romantic relationships: endless discussions about ideas and discoveries. Young people should also realize that college is not just a means to an end, it is designed to acquaint one with a range of works, players and milestones in a variety of areas so that, after college, one can say one has at least a passing familiarly with certain subjects. In this way, college becomes - or should become - a springboard to a lifetime of self-education. As when one years later browses in a bookstore or visits a museum or hears a song or reads or hears something somewhere and recognizes a name or concept seen or mentioned and thinks: “I remember that name, I remember that concept, I want to know more.”
13
Excellent piece, Thank you. Students need to visit, tour the library and meet a librarian. This is especially true when researching and writing your first required 3-5 page paper to be read by your professor.
4
I'm surprised there was no mention of creating a Linked-In page so one could join the race for the best summer internships. Sensible advise in this column? Maybe. But it just made me go "ugh." There's enough jockeying and positioning among ambitious adults, something 18-year-old shouldn't be thrust into. Yes, college is a huge investment but the ROI may be more circuitous and manifest itself in surprising ways. Perhaps a richer life, which has little to do with measurable monetary reward, as a result of taking an elective or fulfilling a requirement in something brand-new and unrelated to what will become your career. Serendipity, by definition, cannot be planned for and can be the magical ingredient of a young person's college experience.
8
---Dropping oldest son off at his first day of college today. Thanks for the timely read, useful suggestions, FB!
4
This is all very sound advice and well worth absorbing.
I would add that a college education doesn't make one an 'expert' in anything. A successful graduate is someone who realizes college merely enables graduates to learn and think for themselves. So it is one very small means to an end, whether that goal be career success or self-fulfilment by other means.
9
18 and 19 year olds are not grown up yet in 21st century America. We give them too much credit when we send them off to college at that age. Students should be required to give two years' worth of service to their country or community before heading off for college. Have them work 40-50 hours/week where their basic living expenses are taken care of; where they learn responsibility, caring for others, team building skills, leadership skills, problem solving, and maybe find that passion in life that will serve them well over the long haul. Then, they will be ready to get the most out of college.
17
As a former college professor, I absolutely agree with all the advice offered by Mr. Bruni. Having said that, I worked very hard at lighting the emotional and intellectual fires of my students---for a few in my classes I was successful---for most I was an abject failure. The twin evils of credentialism and vocationalism embedded in a cruise like entertainment venue continually eroded the educational goals and values written into the universities mission statement. My many hours spent attempting to create the perfect lesson and the many hours lying awake at night thinking about how to execute that lesson were confronted with the classroom reality of a mix of empty seats or seats filled with students who hadn't read the assignment, requested that I extend due dates on assignments, or just got up and left early. The book, Adrift at College, best documents my frustrations with student bodies more concerned with scheduling classes around long weekends of parties and football. Although I was in the position to retire, what made me stay in the classroom were those few students whose conversations after class or in my office were on fire both intellectually and emotionally.
37
I went to school in the 70's and 80's when going to college was what you did. Like getting your learner's permit. Now, reflecting on life's regrets, and offering advice (often unheeded) by my children, I offer the following: If you don't have your heart set on a particular career, spend some of your time in college looking around intellectually: Keep looking for your passion in life even if you think you have already found it. You may not have. Go to each professor's office hours the first week or two to introduce yourself and chat. Become comfortable with being there. You may need to stop again if you struggle or just want some advice. These folks are there because they are passionate about their subject. That may just rub off from one of them. Go to the club/activities fair at the start and try something you have never done before: being a DJ on the radio station or announcer for a sports team, acting, singing, volunteering, or playing on the club sports teams . It's an easy way to meet people. You have some extra time and that will be harder to find and the choices available won't be set up at tables for you once you enter the working world. Use all the resources available (tutoring, writing center, career center, alumni center, etc). You are paying for them. Don't ignore them. And lastly....I always ended my annual letter to my kids I sent after they arrived on campus with following the golden rule: "You have to have a little fun every day".
10
Almost complete, thoughtful piece, Frank. There is something missing though: Fun. College should involve fun. As life should. Your list of tips is long. An antidote to all the pressure, loneliness, work and anxiety is to incorporate something with no purpose but to relax and have a good time.
9
@Tim Bachmann: Fun is important, and I think Mr. Bruni addressed it more obliquely in the suggestion to get involved in a campus organization. Plenty of fun to be had as well as incredible opportunities to learn about oneself and operating within structures and systems.
1
With two children in college right now, and looking back to my own college years, I don't think of college as being quite this pointed. The relationships with professors that Bruni describes here all sounds like an accruing of assets. When I think of the relationships I built in college, and that I hope my children are building now, they felt like and still feel like real relationships, emotional and social connections that are and were about intimacy, fun, and growth, not about knowing the people "worth knowing" and flattering professors. My parents went "mum" as did my my husband and I about telling our college age children how to live their lives. Isn't that the whole idea, after all, to raise them right and then let them go off and have the experience on their own terms and in their own way? The cookie cutter mentality in this piece reminds me of everything I despise about social media; the conformity to trends and to others' expectations, the notion of what success is and entails, the idea that everyone should be a leader, and worst of all, the notion that social connections are something to be counted, curated, and valuated, rather than simply cherished and valued.
38
@RE, well said! Exactly the points that struck the wrong chord with me about this piece.
6
The article has excellent advice for students entering college. THE FOUR YEARS GO BY FAST, WEAR YOUR SNEAKERS AND ENTER RUNNING. KNOW YOUR PROFESSORS, SPEND TIME WITH THEM, GET INVOLVED. I share these words or similar with every student that I work with and have hopes for their future. Yet many retreat to their dorm, drinking, and having a "college experience" which can be had in a different way. Professors love to know their students, read biographies and write to the. I still to that for all my students looking for points of interest. Find clubs, water that precious time which will grow over four years into a lifetime.
I was very fortunate to have been an actress that worked with astoundingly fabulous actors and directors. I was taught to spend my time with excellence, find the best (which is different for all) and cultivate it. The cost of an education is so high, and should be taken advantage of from the first. Professors, love students that get to know them, come up after class (If they don't seek someone else), find jobs on campus, and don't hide in a dorm room.
Seeking excellence, and it is available is a worthy goal- this might mean going to a graduate school seminar, sitting with unfamiliar people in the cafeteria who you know about by reputation--time is money-- and this time does not come again.
1
if only we could have educators write about education instead of journalists. In most fields one usually must have experience In a field before one writes about it. In education anyone who shows care and concern can eventually build a portfolio that qualifies him or her look as an expert.
i wonder why for example Lebron James thinks merely because of his care, commitment and money he thinks he knows how to lead a school. I wouldn't believe I could lead a basketball team just because I care deeply about basketball and have the resources to own one.
Philosophies of value come from thoughtful experience in the trenches not from interviews.
4
Good article! Hits the nail on the head.
We go to this special, intense place. Meet Nobel prize winners. Study at the most intense level. Its all great, but this phase of life only last 4 years or so. It should extend over our entire careers. And for many, it does. Later life experiences can make college small potatoes. Big projects. Huge responsibility. You dont have to do everything in college, you have years ahead, where you will be on teams, be in lead positions, do ground breaking research. Do you dont have to over reach in college. Just be a college student. Enjoy the exposure to all that. But far from your entire career. What you learn after college completely dwarfs that.
I think there's some good advice here, but a lot of it reads like a guide to business networking, as if kids come to college ready to assertively network their way to the top, and as if that's the purpose of college. I got anxious just reading this piece. I don't think many college students are ready for this, and it worries me that the striving attitudes of the business world are coming to be expected of everyone in every phase of life. No wonder college students suffer from extreme levels of anxiety and depression (as Bruni notes). This attitude is actually part of the problem.
47
Glad to know someone else here had an experience more like what I went through. I was starting to wonder if anyone under 60 reads the NYT and/or misbehaved.
I believe in my era, the 70s,there were more career opportunities, even if you didn't have a clue of what you would to do in life. My high school was a Free School, no grades. I got into college as an art major. I drifted to Italian, anthropology, and Asian studies. Kind professors guided me. I managed to gradudate. Armed with a degree in anthropology, I promptly got a job at McDonald's. A night class in business law, gave me the idea to become a lawyer. After numerous rejections, a law school accepted me. People ask why I picked the school? It was the only one that accepted me.The result was a long successful career in law.
There is wonderful advice in article. Problem is, you might find happiness, but with very few low paying careers. I can definitely no longer recommend law school. Too expensive, too many lawyers.
My daughter starts college this week; no frillsNo sororitys. no sports. A classic liberal arts college, with a biology department. She's an amazing writer and artist. However, with hard work, she has managed to push herself into an affinity for chemistry and biology. She knows she can follow her heart
9
Frank's advice is sound. However, I work with first generation college students at a major State University. Of my 120 students, 30% come from families with zero reported income and all come from families considered low-income.
I ask them what they want out of college. They tell me: A solid career. Enough money to buy their parents a house. Enough money so their parents can retire. Clear success that their younger siblings can see and aspire toward. A chance at owning something. They know no one will ever help them with a down payment for a house.
Many look toward immigrant students as their models. They see East and South Asian students reflexively choosing sure-thing career-path majors: pharmacy, engineering, pre-med studies, accounting. They ask me if they should be doing the same thing.
And some just hop from one major to the next, from theatre to art history to kinesiology. They have stopped worrying about carrying the weight of their family's trajectory out of poverty. Unfortunately, when we run data on these more dabbling types post-graduation, we don't find they have joined the Peace Corps. We find they are living back in their old neighborhood, working at a restaurant or a retail shop.
I feel torn between the model of "choose a career path" and the liberal arts model of "explore, explore some more." My students have little room for error.
81
@Jim Thomas
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I was a first generation student who worked hard, from a poor home. My family couldn't help me financially. There was no safety net if I failed. So, now that I'm a professional in a STEM career, I feel I have more time to play and experiment. But at that time, the stakes were too high. I wish it had been different, and college could have been a fun, experimental time, but for poor working class people who want to have a different life than their parents did, it's not always possible.
29
@Jim Thomas As a first-generation college student decades ago, I have found things aren't so black-and-white even when one goes into a "sure thing" major. For example, I enjoyed writing and art but my field is medicine. Yet, I don't feel I miss out: I write scientific papers and design figures/ charts to best convey data so I still get to use skills I enjoy. Similarly, a friend worked for big pharma for 3 decades: she found a position which allowed her to travel the world. It's all what you make of it. Within fields like engineering, medicine, law, and even accounting, there are lots of different opportunities out there if one looks. And for some people, their job is just a way to make money. By finding a steady, well-paying position, they get to indulge their interests whether it is cooking or creative writing. They don't have to worry about food or a roof over their head.
1
@Jim Thomas I would love to know exactly WHAT Data shows this and it's correlation to students economic background. (It's not enough to say "data shows" something without providing what that statement is based on.)
1
It would seem to me that if all High School graduates
had to spend two year working in America Corps
and then went to College or Trade School at age 20,
they would get much more out of their studies than they
presently do.
51
Great column. Now in my 38th year teaching at a state university I still find the first day of class as exhilarating as when I started. As a practicing lawyer as well I bring real world knowledge to students and try to show them how today they are citizens of the world, we don't operate in a vacuum. But the most heartening aspect is to receive notes from students that say that I made a difference. And as Bruni points out - the mentoring aspect - being available - encouraging an "open door" and confidentiality is one of the most important aspects. As faculty we cannot underestimate our impact and just how far reaching it is.
6
A student may be very frustrated attempting to achieve a relationship with a university professor in those institutions which insulate their lecturing professors behind a team of graduate-student sections-teachers. Some universities pride themselves as teaching colleges, and others...don't. Which comes back to choice of a college, doesn't it? If you want a relationship with faculty members, choose an institution which facilitiates this, not one which insulates its professors in order to preserve freedom to research.
16
As a college student, I admire a lot of Frank Bruni's advice in this column. But one point confuses me. Bruni presents the Mitchell scholars as examples of success in life. The Mitchell scholars followed a straight path in college, focusing and not taking risks. Yet the column (following what the Mitchell scholars themselves say, in retrospect, about the college careers they *should* have had) recommends taking risks and not following this straight path as the way to get the best that college has to offer. I'm just confused about how the column cites the Mitchell scholars as examples of success in life, but then recommends *not* following the example they set in their actual college careers.
14
@L
Good point, L. But please don't assume that applying for scholarships or grants or awards isn't "taking risks," or that winning one of those awards and moving to another country isn't terrifying to students who had never traveled beyond their home communities. Not all of us are encouraged by precept or example to leave home at the age of 20 or 22; families and peer groups exert pressures of various kinds (some financial, some psychological). And let's not underestimate the heavy anchor called "fear of failure." I was one of those "who, me?" achievers who--for more than one of these reasons, and to the complete bafflement of my professors who wanted more for me-- turned down the most extraordinary opportunities. I have never stopped regretting those decisions. Rewards are also a risky business. I'm not proud of those choices, and I know what they have cost me in the long run. Doubtless all change involves risk, but so, sometimes, does not changing.
1
The most terrifying and beautiful aspect of going to college is that it removes you from the things you've been surrounded by long enough to have absorbed them into who you think you are. By throwing yourself in a brand new environment with people who have no baseline for how you're supposed to act, beginning college is really the first time in your entire life that you get to (or are forced to) define who you are. I realized after meeting people freshman year from around the country and all walks of life that this was the first time I had no point of reference for anybody I was meeting - and they had none for me. This prompted serious self-reflection. Suddenly, I was examining my actions away from the context of my hometown, my family and friends, and trying to understand what they said about me and if I liked it or not. It's an intense period of self-awareness and openness to change. After completing freshman year, I found myself reporting back to friends from home and eager family members that I was the most "myself" I had ever felt - a truly wonderful feeling.
21
How kind of you to write this advice to those who are looking forward to college. I'm not like traditional age students having been a first semester freshman at 48. When I started I was all about "piling on" credits in the subject of my interest which was Psychology. I was frustrated with the core credit system as it required courses that were often closed when I tried to register. I transferred soon to a liberal arts college with a much more flexible core course requirement. The faculty/student ratio was high so I ventured into areas I had never been curious about. One of the best experiences I ever had. talk about "open the doors and let the sunshine in". When I was in college back then I'm not sure I'd of had the same perspective and what a glorious experience I'd have missed.
2
Too bad most college classes these days are taught by adjuncts, who often aren't paid for office hours and are nurturing students out of the kindness of their own hearts. Yes, it's important to make the most of your college years, but the system is broken in ways that hurt both faculty and students.
77
Hello: I wish a column on this topic would be written for the type of college students I teach: older, non-traditional often with socio-economic and academic challenges. They also have hopes and dreams but have not been exposed to how to achieve them.
29
My first quarter in college, I came in 4 days after registration at a big state school. My choices were limited and I randomly chose a class on Brecht, of whom I'd never heard, that still had room in it.
There were only 8 of us. A mousy young prof, who reminded me of Sandy Dennis in Virginia Woolfe, slowly, shyly, teased out her passion for everything Brecht. She was such a fan, and knew everything. She virtually trembled with the excitement of passing along what she knew. She even invited us to her threadbare apartment near the university one night to listen to Lotte Lenya, and 3 Penny Opera.
It wasn't until decades later, way after having embraced and been part of the avant garde NYC theatre and performance art scene in the 70s and 80s, that I remembered her and realized she shaped everything for me.
That's the kind of teachers and classes I suggest. I strongly doubt she ever got tenure.
105
@Eric
Oh, yes. This brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for reminding us of our own (then)
under-appreciated mentors. But now it is way too late to thank them.
2
@Jacobsenlc
I'm lucky. I got to thank mine! And karma seems to be a wonderful thing. Last week, one of the wonderful students I was privileged to mentor stopped by my home in the evening, knocked on the door, and said "I needed to thank you and tell you I love you---and I needed to do it in person." A few days later, I had breakfast with another former "mentee" who I hadn't seen in several years, made a similar statement. I had a wonderful career that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I know I made a difference in many students' lives. Happy, happy, joy, joy!
2
Great Column! I taught at and attended as an undergrad a former teachers college, then geographical named university now state university in Missouri. We had a program for honor students which gave an almost free ride, plus computer. I think of two advisees who came there; made great grades; took advantage of progs and student ativities. Both said they could not have afforded even the main state university without lots of work time.(They had campus jobs and also worked weekends at retail) With good grades, lots of activities, wide interests they left Missouri State one to go to Harvard Law and the other to Stanford.
I often had students telll me that needed to go to Washington University of Missouri University to succeed but it is not so even today. It was also not necessary when as a student in 1953 and little to draw on from very supportive parents with a 5th and 8th grade education. I went to CMSC. I eared a BA with majors in history, speech and foreign language; spent a summer at MeGill for French; then to Missouri U for an MA. Great profs there, Lewis Spitz(later Dean at Stanford and David Pinkney, later U of Washington and President of the American Historical Association) got me to apply for a Fulbright and a Rhodes. I only made the final 121 for our district Rhodes but got the Fulbright and continued to a PhD. I practiced what I preached to the young man and woman mentioned earlier.
1
The are privileged years? No, they are necessary years. It is unfortunate that the USA thinks of them as privileged when they are certainly more in the substantial, important category.
Most people in the USA population do not realize or choose not to recognize how important the Ph.D degree really is, in terms of boosting a person's ability to read, write, reason... thus, think. Quality of Thought and Conversation can improve quite a bit. Could be the difference between CEO or not making-the-cut for CEO position consideration.
Most people in the USA do not realize or respect that there are 52 Grades in the hierarchical structure of the School System, and that the earliest chronological age a person can graduate from School is 52 years old. Europe is ahead of the USA in this acknowledgement, recognition. I just finished recently. So, I know what I am talking about. What kind of jobs and benefits do these people receive? I do not think that Trump or Pence actually know or care.
As for Bruni's mention of Isolation, as being a negative. Actually it can be a positive. The walk towards developing Individuality, can be very lonely. Especially when you have to, decide to say No to people. Decide to drop-out of a club, or not apply for membership. Individuality is very important for human development, IQ Development, and for the "landing" of Top Level Jobs.
3
@Kim Susan Foster
Edit: The are... to: They are privileged years?
How about college students focus on STUDYING -- that's what the word student stands for.
21
I remember touring UC Berkeley with my son. Our tour guide was a student there. He mentioned that the school had seven Nobel Laureates, and all of them had mandatory office hours every week -- but very few students ever showed up. He said he agonized over visiting one and finally summoned the courage to do it. When he entered the professor's office, he discovered model cars and airplanes everywhere, and he loved modeling too. So, they talked about their love of modeling for an hour. That visit helped him break the ice on office hour visits and he heartily recommended all incoming students develop the habit.
33
@Patrick Callinan: Back when I was teaching, I always announced extra office hours in the week before finals, telling students that I would help them out with anything they didn't understand.
Of course, the students who really needed coaching rarely showed up. It was mostly the "A" students who dropped in to make sure they hadn't missed something.
When I think back 25 years after graduating college, my fondest memories are of my Shakespeare and political science professors, and my time working on the campus newspaper. That dovetails well with what Bruni says here about finding mentors and becoming part of the fabric of college life.
I also remember loving the one art history course and the one Western Music history I took. I didn't take them for any reasons related to my major or to whatever career hopes I had at the time. I only took them because I wanted to learn for the sake of learning, and even now those courses still help shape my enjoyment of cultural life.
I'm now trying to impart all of this to my oldest son, who leaves for his first year of college one week from now. This column will also help. Thanks.
10
This article acknowledges in one short paragraph that probably at least half (& probably more) of American college students don’t have the luxury of abundant time, but then goes on to devote all of its advice to that privileged minority who has the money to attend a 4 year college w/out working, & this can focus on self development. What about everybody else? The comm college students, or the student working 20 hours a week at a state school (that was me!) have dreams of self actualization too. Wouldn’t it be great to read about how those students, who likely are not as adept at self advocating and networking, could help make their dreams come true?
53
@R.L. Bruni’s advice holds true even for students who have to work during their college years. I too worked my way through college and learned quickly that cultivating and engaging professors about the courses that most interested me for a possible career path, was even more valuable than the actual class work and worth the extra time in the long run. Many professors have connections to internships and post-college employment, and I landed my first marketing job through a professor. Conversely, I switched from marketing to a career in higher ed (teaching and admnistration) due to a conversation with a wise empathic dean at NYU when I was earning an MBA in my 50s after the 2008 crash. Three other NYU professors ultimately wrote letters of recommendation for me, and I have taught at NYU, and colleges in New Jersey and New England, in addition to marketing and fundraising for these schools. Good students that have sought me out for advice or introductions - whether they were introverts or extroverts - always had my ear, and I continue to write recommendations for them and serve as a reference. Book knowledge, R&R and introspection are essential, but gifted teachers and mentors are priceless. Go for it!
7
"It charted her realization and regret that she and so many classmates skipped professors’ office hours and didn’t avail themselves of invaluable conversations and counsel." I taught medical microbiology at university, and I used to practically beg students to come to me for help if they were confused about the material being taught in lecture, or had any questions they wanted to discuss, but very, very few ever came to ask me a single question.
To those who are are getting ready to leave for college, I would tell them, that if there is something mentioned in a lecture you need to clarify, then do not be afraid to ask for help. There is no shame in that. There is not usually enough time during a lecture to answer each and every question a student might have.
Invaluable column Frank for those who are about to be college bound. It is such an exciting time of life to be savored.
11
@Diana
Let's be honest... professors like company in their little offices too. It flatters them, and they often reward students for the socializing rather than really mastering the materials.
This article helped me understand Frank's career though, and how and how a mediocre thinker and writer worked his way up the career ladder.
1
I get a kick out of observing Bruni acting as if he had some particular expertise or insight about college education.
13
@Larry Figdill
It's a lucrative field right now -- selling college kids books on how to have a good college experience, and telling kids who come from families with money not to worry about where they went or what substantive knowledge they learned because networking and connection and family money are what really matter...
If you are starting out on your own, you have to learn to compete and how to get yourself a job out of school. It's a mistake to think your professors will care about that. Listen to the advice of your own family members who have worked hard and sacrificed to get you there.
And when the liberal profs start dissing the culture you were raised in, get yourself out. Don't become indoctrinated with the PC.
1
@Larry Figdill - Re: Bruni’s expertise, take a look at his credentials at the end of the article. He has covered multiple beats at the Times - left- and right-brain and is one of the rare analysts that can write smoothly for this newspaper plus opine on TV without turning the appearance into a “look-at-me” megalomania diatribe.
1
My advice about college, from the perspective of having 71 birthdays behind me, to my 19-y.o. self would be...don't. Not yet, at least. Most of what you learned in high school that you think is important now will either be forgotten or unimportant within a year. So spend that year, and more, several if you need them, getting your head screwed on straight. Join the military, travel, work at whatever jobs (and the more the better) you can find.
Live on what you make. Read. Magazines of quality like The Atlantic, Harpers, Nation, Utne Reader, The New Yorker, Free Inquiry (Note: not the National Inquirer, Washington Monthly, New Republic. Go to the library to save money. Make friends with people older than yourself. Fish. Fish some more. Stay out of jail. Though if you find yourself there, rightfully, learn from that experience, too.
The best, most productive, most educational, absolutely the most fun years were the years I spent in college when I was older than most of my instructors. Professors treat and respond to older students in ways the younger ones can only wish they were treated.
If you are in college to get rich, you're there for the all the wrong reasons. If your parents are rich and insisting you follow in their footsteps, you have my condolences, but not my sympathies. Learn to make it on your own, or you could end like a certain person I know of who is despised around the world. Which brings up one last item. Don't obsess about your hair.
144
@Glen "The best, most productive, most educational, absolutely the most fun years were the years I spent in college when I was older than most of my instructors."
I taught for one year 1970-71 (by design). Kids out of HS wasting there time with few exceptions. Best students— Vietnam vets and people bored with their profession wanting something new.
4
@Glen As a former college professor and dean, I congratulate you on the best, most insightful comment that I've read in the NYT for several years. Reflects my experience from the professor/administrator end precisely.
5
If I may add one more item (I hit the character limit and only now remembered I had intended to finish with this): Don't, under any circumstances, join a fraternity. That was probably my worst freshman year decision.
19
"How to Get the Most Out of College" - that is certainly a title that can be interpreted in many ways! (Steal as much furniture out of the dorm as you can.)
This article is certainly a mixed bag of information. Some of it good and some not so good. I know it is Friday, but the author should have formulated his thoughts rather than stringing together a series of disparate opinions.
There is having an interest in what you study and then suck up to every professor that you can so that they can write a recommendation for you.
To me the person signing up for all of the professor's hours is either 1) sucking up for a recommendation, 2) totally lost in class and probably doesn't belong there or 3) think they know it all and what to show it.
7
@pat Give the professors some credit! Many of us usually know who is sucking up for the sake of that, who is lost in class and who is posturing to demonstrate they know it all. In fact, there are other students who don’t hesitate to call out poseurs or imposters, in case the professors missed something, especially in business courses and even more so in MBA classes. Bruni nailed it, all of it. The column - and others he’s written on the college topics - should be a new book. Engage professors (and other scholars). Do the work (and discover your strengths in the process). Read beyond the assignments (and discover a career you had not considered.) That is not sucking up. That is living an engaged and interested life.
2
@Liz DiMarco Weinmann
Of course professors know who is sucking up and who is lost. This column says nothing about office hours for getting help, it is seeing the prof to suck up.
Read beyond the assignments? Engage Professors? Discuss relativity with Einstein?
The many of us who teach in higher education know that, students skip lectures all the time, don't even do the assigned reading and don't do the hw assignments on their own. Students struggle to master the just the basic material of a class!
So students, before spending your time engaging professors and other scholars, spend some time learning the basics of your math class.
Applied in '90 with my aero degree to a hundred openings nationwide. GPA, societies, activities: check. Zero interviews and two offers, both from Uncle Sam. Others got called by Boeing, etc. Maybe it was because they were locals without moving costs.
But if I'd neglected anything besides sleep, it was bonding with my profs. Post-docs I worked with were great, and may well have written recommendations, but they weren't "mentors" as Mr. Bruno means.
Somehow I'd landed the perfect job for ME. Actually used much of what I'd learned, to a point. Maybe unlike my corporate peers, I didn't need the sky-high math and theory largely targeted for grad students (and bringing the school money). My struggles and feelings of being overwhelmed with that were something I never discussed with anyone.
In retrospect, such conversations with faculty come easier at community college. But don't let being one fish in a big lecture hall intimidate you from an some excuse to drop by the office. And sure, some are there for the money, but profs that care aren't there just to help solve book problems. They have a lot wider perspective on how you might "fit" out there.
1
One thing I would add to this excellent piece is the virtue of taking survey courses in as many disparate fields as possible, and not only to help you pick a major.
The very first class I took as a freshman was a survey of anthropology. I wound up as a journalist, but that one class taught me that culture is critical to understanding almost all human activities.
I majored in English comp with a heavy concentration of philosophy. After I figured out the value of the broadest possible education, I took classes in chemistry, astronomy, calculus, psychology, classical mythology, jazz, history, economics - and probably others I've forgotten.
The science classes unexpectedly led to a key reporting position, which opened my way to editing positions accompanied by part-time lecturing at the same university I attended as an undergraduate.
The other classes greatly enhanced my career, but, much more importantly, deeply enriched my life experience.
22
Students should select college and their major degree courses of study based upon the value that their degree will increase their employability and pay scale after graduation, and not some subject that is easy or fun.
Tell the students that they will be working for a high school drop-out in the fast food industry if they get one of the ”Useless Degrees” that are fun and easy to get without studying
Even if tuition for some of the easy to get some of these useless degrees were free, they would not be worth their time expended for that degree.
6
Listened to a recent interview with Spike Lee. His opinion was that parents often are the dream crushers of children, pushing them towards areas of study based on all the things other than what the student likes to do. He seemed correct.
3
The greatest thing any potential college goer can do is to take a year off right after high school graduation. - preferably to travel extensively.
- they’re in college “to widen the circle of human beings who know you and care about you,” - That would fit into the idea of traveling, but don't do it to take as many selfies, and whether people will care about you, is up to you. Being genuine would certainly help.
I have seen the difference with it firsthand with me own daughters. One drove right into college and struggled, while the other took a year off, traveled South East Asia for a year, and came back with increased calmness and vigor for challenges. The last one wants to rule the world, but that is a whole other story.
It's not for all, but just keep in mind that life is not a sprint.
5
Some people don't have the money to pay for a year long abroad trip and four years of college to pay after.
18
So many decisions. Especially when education has become a business, and the college degree is the equivalent of of a high school diploma of 60 years ago.
My classmates in high school studied Thoreau and Faulkner, dissected frogs, and learned calculus. And the department chairs all had PhDs.
Oh, and it was a public high school funded by taxpayers, not a charter school, or a private "academy" that served as a feeder school to the Ivy League for the landed aristocracy.
27
I love you! You write the best columns.
2
The comment by Jim Gates is right on the spot. The key is of course finding the subject you are really passionate about. Then, you not only enjoy the college life but also learn in depth about the subject that you deeply love. Parents encourage their children to go to elite school, go to medical school ( you can make lot of money), etc., the usual stuff and I am guilty of that as well. Fortunately, they went to excellent state schools with little cost to me and after graduation, they both went to the same top school and got their Ph.D’s in Physics and Molecular Biology. They now enjoy their professional lives. I preach what Jim Gates said but not easy to practice. The social prestige for parents and the children is too sexy to give up and follow the path of what interests you.
3
Some students might find it useful to peruse, and later re-read in greater detail, John Henry Newman's "The Idea of a University" (1852).
4
Mr. Bruni's usual mix of nailed it combined with wandering off course.
Actively engaging with professors, clubs, and activities are very important. These students build more relationships, and also learn and gain experiences beyond the class room. Nailed it.
However, he then wanders off course when he says choosing a major is not very important. Choosing a major is very important if you don't come from a family with money, and getting a paying job is important to you. It is also very difficult to generalize about because each students interests, abilities and situation are unique.
He again wanders off course a bit when he says that it is fine to take time to decide on a major. That also depends on the situation. Students begin to choose a major when the choose a school. They have effectively decided to rule out any major that that school does not offer. That may include engineering, business, nursing, or education. Additionally, students who take a couple of years to take a breadth of classes have often implicitly ruled out options such as science, engineering, or nursing because many of those majors require a fairly focused 4 year plan.
His advice is accurate for someone who wants to be a writer for the New York times, but is then over generalized. When making generalizations, please consider whether it is accurate for student across a wide range of potential majors. A lot of people read this, and trust you. :)
16
Don't start smoking tobacco.
29
Mr. Bruni's great writing and the excellent life stories underline the profound value that higher education does offer. But sometimes it's hard to figure out how it works. Throw this life sequence into the college value hopper:
1. Barely graduated with BS in Physics.
2. Software engr. in satellite reconnaissance.
3. Became weekend photographer (portraits, weddings)
4. Started corporate media center
5. Free-lance photography and video producer
6. Independent corporate event producer.
7. Online hotel reservations
8. House buyer and remodeler
9. Designed and built current house (best life achievement)
My conclusion: curiosity and trust in my innate intelligence. College started my learning and maturation. It took a while longer to discover my best skills (visual presentation).
13
@Allen You took the right first step, by getting a good hard-core STEM degree. Physics -- it doesn't get much more hard-core than that. You really had to learn to think to get through that.
Then you had the ability to do all the rest or learn what you needed to learn.
In a better world you'd have had an easy corporate path with that background, but that's been tough in our generation and you had to live by your wits.
I find this topic of pursuing your passions, or what really lights your fire somewhat misguided. You may love to cook fine cuisine, but you might not want to own a restaurant where there is so much more to running that business than cooking food. I've found that it is sometimes best to keep your passions as things to do as hobbies in your spare time for your own gratification. What you do for work should lean towards things you are good at, for sure, but that might not be where your passions lie.
10
@Stew: If you can manage to work at what your passions are, it will not seem like work at all. Isn't getting paid for what you would do for free a wonderful description of a fine life? I am not alone when I say that's how I continue to manage it (even in my late 70s). I am also nowhere near in the majority; so much the pity. And I also understand that work is not all of life...
4
@Stew - Yes, I agree. And honestly, I am tired of hearing about everyone's passions. How many 18 year olds (or for that matter, 17 year olds preparing their applications) even HAVE passions? They are barely even people yet. That is what college is for, I think - becoming a person. Among others who are becoming people. This involves taking some of the wrong courses to discover what you don't want to do, meeting lots of people and finding a few that you like and hopefully love, finding something to major in that you enjoy enough to study hard, and coming out on the other end approximately four years older and hopefully ready to get a job or continue your schooling. People that I know that have true passions mostly develop them slowly, as a result of mistakes and digressions, somewhat later in life, and not as a result of a deliberate progression of checking off boxes and meeting the correct people.
8
As a college professor who has been teaching for 25 years I would add one caveat to Mr. Bruni's advice about forging a close relationship with professors: Students should not rely on professors' guidance for tasks that are more appropriately brought to the relevant administrative offices on campus.
Over the course of many years I have been approached by students for assistance with an administrative matter (e.g., course registration, financial aid, etc.) that is the function of well-trained and well-staffed administrators on campus.
Students are best served by developing close relationships with faculty members in the academic realm, but relying on the services of professional administrators when what is relevant is a task which those administrators are best suited to provide.
17
Frank - nice. Yes, kids desperately need to know this kind of thing ahead of time, and we do it very badly.
There's more, of course. One I was looking for here and didn't see- most colleges have a few "Great" professors. Hard to identify; but not impossible; ask the Seniors who they are; the professors who change students' lives. Then; and it doesn't matter what they teach; get into their classes. You'll be glad you did, forever.
19
I think this piece is rather complicated, at least for me. In my eighth decade, retired, I cherish two things that happened at college: 1) I developed a love for social history, neuroscience, psychology and fiction that enriched my life non-materially and 2) The depth I began developing in my struggles made me appreciate that the "...glass was half full." By the grace of God, those seeds were planted in those terribly short, four years.
13
This is all great advice, but the skills you describe needed to succeed in college are the same that succeed in younger years. Instead of having your child pick up an obscure instrument or spend a summer in a prescribed fashion, maybe let them follow their passions sooner.
My son did a science camp from third grade, not because I said so, but because he wanted to. By tenth grade he was a counselor at that camp. He interacted with the teachers, talked about his interests and motivated the other kids. One of the teachers connected him with a job in a lab. My son brought his enthusiasm and the lab staff responded with projects and opportunities that he wouldn’t have dared dream of. As he applies to college other parents want to know how I “got him that job”. My only role in the whole thing was to sign him up for the initial activity, which he loved, and support his explorations.
There are lots of kids at that science camp whose parents make them be there, despite their antipathy. So they’re passive learners at best. After a couple of years they refuse to return. Maybe jazz camp, drama camp, art camp or writing would be a better fit. When kids are following their passions and not resume building they engage with the adults, they read extra, they try to deepen their experiences and make their own opportunities—precisely those skills needed to get the most out of college.
6
Mr. Bruni, I couldn't agree more with the notion of spending time with your professors during office hours or even during a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. I learned so many different things about my field outside of the classroom during these conversations. But because students are hurried and not counseled to look for knowledge, experience and wisdom beyond the technical that is offered inside the class or lab, too few don't. I often tell my daughter who is a rising junior that college is the best time of your life -- not because of the parties that are all around, but because of the flowering opportunity that college represents. soak it all in like a flower does rain and sun.
5
The advice starts by suggesting college is more than a credentialing exercise--then proceeds to extol it's value as a networking exercise. That's not a change of perspective, just a new tactic.
College used to be many things besides a ticket to professional success: A last chance at making learning your top priority, an opportunity to discover or reinvent yourself, a segue from a parents household to complete independence.
But mind boggling costs and a changing world mean that first and foremost, it is an expensive, risky investment toward for a financially secure life. So make sure you get that credential and those networking contacts.
4
Interesting piece. My comment regards the value of a liberal arts education. I graduated from Amherst College in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. I then went to Case Western Reserve University and earned a PhD. My major was physics; neither degree says physics.
Amherst still had the New Curriculum that had fixed, required freshman year courses, including a year of physics and calculus. To me this was like studying how western thought and civilization developed, and what was considered should be known by an Educated Person, regardless of field.
My field is nuclear safeguards, nonproliferation, and arms control. I've worked and lived all over the world, because much of my work was for/with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations affiliate.
I've worked with Ambassadors, Embassy staff, Generals, Admirals, etc from many countries. I feel the liberal arts eduction I received helped me work between science, diplomacy, and foreign policy with people of many different backgrounds, cultures, faiths, and languages.
It troubles me to see today that so much emphasis is placed on preparing for a career; to be sure, this is certainly an important issue.
I believe the requirement of 4 years of college before entering medical or law school is exactly to provide important education before these men/women study their chosen profession.
47
@Dr. T. Douglas Reilly You were in college with my father, Brett Prentiss. He graduated a year before you and would have agreed with every word of your post.
1
Lots of good advice here. But I'd like to focus on those Mr Bruni raises, then ignores after one paragraph: "Many don’t have the luxury: College for them is a slapdash scramble to grab credits as they can while working a demanding job, caring for family members or both. More than a third of the students enrolled in higher education in this country attend two-year institutions. Those at four-year institutions often don’t participate in the romantic ideal of nurturing dormitories and verdant quadrangles. They live with parents. They pray for parking." These students are every bit as important as those Frank talks about in the rest of the essay. And as a society, we are failing them by making college a struggle to overcome, not an opportunity to seize.
One other point: good as Frank's advice is, this wisdom can't be deferred until the first day of the freshman year. Personal habits to diversify, to experiment, to socialize intellectually aren't acquired by flipping a switch; they are developed over long periods, and if that begins only at the arrival in college, many opportunities will be missed. Mr. Bruni's advice needs to be conveyed to high school freshmen, and if taken will bear fruit four years later in college.
83
"college as purely vocational and plants the false notion that, at the age of 18, you know yourself well enough to plot out the entirety of your professional life"
That approach has a lot of students really freaked out.
I've had freshman tell me they are feeling desperate because they don't know their major or what career it will enable. They have not even started and they think they need to know it all.
It puts a lot of stress on students, as much or more as the financial abuse of students.
Yet tracking it down the road, for most graduates I know, their actual jobs are not something for which college prepared them as a vocational skill. Even when they learn coding and start in a coding job, they move around and don't just stay there coding.
Somebody has to sell the service, and help customers, and respond to problems; they all studied coding too.
7
Very different thoughts from this couple. She knew what she wanted as a research scientist career from high school and survived all 12 years of college including being the first woman ever to graduate from her department. She had some help from parents for undergraduate but graduate schools were hers and mine together. I, on the other hand, knew nothing but 40+ hours a week of after school work since the 8th grade of junior high school and through my undergraduate. A short 6 years of military service during the time of that small skirmish in Asia interrupted my undergraduate studies that resumed immediately upon my return and I, too, knew exactly what I wanted for the science career I enjoyed. When we met, we knew the work the other had put into a career so far. The coursework required to get there allowed no time whatsoever for other than the bare minimum from other departments. Most science programs do not. Earning enough to pay entirely for 4 graduate degrees consumed our time off. However, beyond our academics, we both had wide ranging curiousity, devouring classics, philosophy, music and much of the other cirriculum we didn't have time to take. Now retired, we wouldn't have changed a thing and still marvel at those who can attend college at their leisure or work some 20 hour a week work study job, or have the time to have an unpaid intership, or travel, or just read. What a luxury that must be.
11
Don't go to college right out of high school. Go out into the world first; travel, engage in life with different people and you will learn far more than any college can teach you. Then, and only then, should you decide to go to college. For then you might actually know what subject to take.
We hinder our kids by forcing them into college so soon. They get into debt right off the bat, often for taking a subject they're not interested in, or are unnecessary for their future. Allowing our kids to get into debt so early in life is the biggest hindrance to them and this country.
Ah, but, I hear you say, they need the college experience, no matter the subject. Actually, no they don't. They'll get far better and far more experience in the real world. All colleges do these days is put people into nice tidy little boxes; they often hinder free expression, free thought, and above all, ingenuity.
And if all they need is a diploma to get ahead, then that alone is a problem we have created. Created largely by colleges becoming businesses and needing every single kid to attend 'their' institution. For instance, there is no reason ever to need to take a computer science degree. No one needed them before they were 'invented' (to make money for colleges, mostly). You can learn all you need to know online...on a computer. And self-taught people should be given priority, for it is they who have drive and ambition and do not need to be taught by rote, processed repetition.
2
Try obtaining a chemical engineering degree using your advice and you will be out of college before the end of your first year. To master certain disciplines at the university level requires focus on the tasks at hand and allowing the "butterflies and balloons" behavior of others to be a mere passing fancy.
14
@Eric Muehl At Berkeley, many professors are fed up with the nose to the grindstone chemistry students and are looking for more balanced kids (ones who have a more holistic agenda). Times are slowly changing, even for the science majors.
10
@Dee Those particular professors at Berkeley are definitely not members of its chemical engineering department in my opinion. I'm sure teaching "balanced kids" is a lot less challenging than having to put up with a bunch of brainiacs.
My daughter worked hard to get into her first choice university. And when I sent her off to college I said "explore, make good friends, and have fun." She graduated this year and has a good job, but the most meaningful part of her college experience has been her friendships, which may sustain her for a lifetime, even if her career doesn't.
11
Correct calibration, you say. Ah, yes, moderation and common sense. Not taking a leaf from the Trump playbook. I am skeptical that your advice will be followed by the young when their older family members seem oblivious to facts and are in thrall to group think about appropriate majors and the like. As a retired faculty member, I recall, fondly, the small number of undergraduates (usually women) who had the right blend of curiosity and diligence to get it right. My own undergraduate college has a motto that we all should follow: MELIORA (aka BETTER).
5
Great advice and I’d like to add one life lesson: after your graduate, don’t lose touch with those your develop friendships with. Keep those special few close and with you for a lifetime. Work hard, live in the present, be kind to everyone and do so with gratitude.
11
@Pete True. I graduated over 20 years ago and still have my 3 close friends I had in college.
1
I went to UNC-Chapel Hill not with a specific idea of what my major was going to be, but with the notion that becoming a "renaissance man" (something I'd been introduced to in high school) was worth pursuing. It gave shape to an innate curiosity for which I have my parents to thank. I graduated with a double major in English and Philosophy.
To your point, Frank, among the most cherished moments I recall was time spent after class with a professor or walking across campus with the chairman of the Philosophy department and fellow classmates discussing Plato vs. Aristotle. Ah, to be back there again!
10
Frank Bruni, I have always liked your writing. Now I love it.
This work with college students has been my home for 30+ years. Have read far, far too many columns with advice about navigating higher education. You write the truth here with depth, richness, and flair. Grateful I am.
7
Great advice. I agree with Juliëtte Sterkens who recommended that it be assigned to all incoming collegians.
For over 15 years I have interviewed high school candidates in my area of the Midwest for admission to Princeton. Although very few are accepted by Princeton, I try to make our interview dialogue useful to the students wherever they may go and, to the extent that they are receptive to advice, I encourage them to concentrate on two things that Frank Bruni also recommends: 1) careful selection of their peer group for both diversity and academic focus and 2) getting to know their instructors beyond the classroom, particularly in their upper class years.
When I was a college student over 40 years ago I paid attention to the first, but to my regret did not place enough value on the second. Thank you, Frank, for your valuable and timeless advice.
This article provides some great advice. However, I don't feel that the context facing many of today's universities and students was given enough attention. It has become increasingly difficult for students to form important bonds and mentoring relationships with faculty members, particularly at large state universities. The corporate model has been taking over the administration of many universities for the past few decades. Tenured and tenure track faculty are becoming increasingly rare, which means that introductory level courses are taught by underpaid adjuncts and/or graduate students. A student that is inspired by such a faculty member may not have the opportunity to take an upper division course with her/him. Additionally, full-time faculty are facing increased demands for higher enrollments, more classes, and increased research productivity. Add to this the growing reliance on online courses. These changes are occurring while the proportion of university budgets paying for more and more administrators grows. Again, this article contains sound advice that is increasingly difficult to follow, except for students attending particular types of universities, such as small liberal arts colleges. For many students, and faculty, mentoring relationships are hard to develop at the undergraduate level due to structural issue beyond their control at the individual level.
57
Paying off student loans is a drag.
Go to community college for two years and state college for the rest, unless you get a substantial scholarship for a private college. The slight uptick in teaching quality at liberal arts schools simply isn't worth the price of admission anymore. Consider just getting an associates unless you absolutely need a B.A. (it's fast becoming a requirement for jobs that high school grads could easily do, sadly). Remember that skilled blue collar jobs often pay more than office jobs.
7
@T. Warren, My husband teaches engineering at a community college. If you can get through the program, there's a job waiting for you. And a lot of the time those employers will later pay for you to get the Bachelor's degree.
And whether you're going to a commuity college for a technical program or a four-year program, my husband will echo Frank's advice: take advantage of office hours. It truly pains him to have students wait to come see him until they're underwater.
13
@T. Warren
And forget about learning anything not job related.
3
@Cassandra, You can read the Great Books on your own. We have public libraries full of books for people who want to put in the effort to become well-read.
It's much more sensible than forking over 40k a year to major in the humanities.
Lots of great advice here, gained the hard way, from those engaged in the process of higher education.
College may not be vocational school, but it does have a big influence on the rest of your life, including vocation, family and community. As someone who received a very narrow education within college institutions, I would recommend seeking diversification and value, and above all, planning to finish from Day One, kind of like retirement. That is, unless you are endowed with a family fortune.
After all, you will have a job, but also a family of some kind or another, a community and a world guaranteed to change radically during your lifetime. So don't put all of your eggs in one basket, no matter how compelling your interest or passion in a specific area. Economics, politics, culture, science and history have a way of overlapping in a good education, each reinforcing the rest.
Seek value, the best education for the money, choose a college or university with strength in diverse fields, with good tuition value and opportunity to work and travel as part of the experience. Doing college research work in your field can be invaluable later.
But above all, finish. Be cautious with debt and plot your way through required classes early, so a four year degree doesn't take five or six to complete. This impacts both student debt and earning money to pay it back. Most students are ready to be done after four years but often don't have the credits.
Its not an easy journey.
12
This is truly a thoughtful article. Would that young people going to college were sophisticated or smart enough to take advantage of it. I reflect on my own college years, when I did go to as many lectures and presentations as I could fit into my schedule, but shied away from professors' offices because i was terrified of them. Later, as a professor myself, I spent many hours waiting in my office for students to visit. Few did. And I taught at a university where students worked 20+ hours a week - and lived with family - to be able to get through and get that credential. The opportunities were there on campus to be seized, but students didn't have the time or energy - or, perhaps, courage - to take advantage of them. College, when used well, is a gift and a tremendous luxury. When used as Bruni proposes, it's a gateway to a life well lived.
7
@Betsy Blosser, I, too would have been terrified to cultivate any sort of relationship with a professor. It would be nice if college-bound kids could take some of this advice to heart but maybe we should cut them a little slack and let them make their own mistakes. I made plenty because I was too immature and anxiety-ridden to take advantage of the gift offered me. The stakes are much higher now -- particularly because of the exorbitant cost of education -- but 18-year-olds are not mature adults, and maybe they shouldn't be expected to be.
7
This is an obviously timely article and sound general advice (as we're packing one of ours off to university next week). It is unfortunate, however, that such admonitions even need to be made. As I've wrestled with these issues myself, including looking back on how I spent my time at some of America's finest universities. Perhaps like a lot of parents, I'm a bit tired of instructing teenagers on basic life skills, which makes me wonder if one of the sources of the general challenge Mr. Bruni raises, is that college isn't really where most 18 year olds belong initially, and it may be precisely the wrong place for them to develop the organizational skills they need to really make college an optimal exercise. The military comes to mind of course, but so does working, and working at hard, physical jobs. Even interning in government: Kissinger didn't graduate from Harvard College until he was nearly 25. Mike Bloomberg came from nothing and went thru Johns Hopkins electrical engineering undergrad, then Harvard MBA; or Sam Zell: BA/JD at Michigan while he was working in real estate. There are a thousand more examples in every country, but they all have the same thing in common: hard work, and going to college as a man, not a boy (or a woman, not a girl). This of course challenges the Academy, which is used to having enormous, sometimes excessive influence on young adults. "In loco parentis" was upended decades ago by Dickey v. Alabama, but may need some refreshing.
6
Ask any professor amd they will tell you that maturity is greatest factor in college success. The wisest path for many is to take a gap year and face the realities of living alone, earning wages, making your own decisons. College is wasted on the young and immature.
265
I was forced into college at barely 18, not knowing what to take and what I would do with my life. I took Science, but struggled with the calculus. I had a miserable first semester feeling out of my depth, trying to smile when my parents asked me how it was going. I ended up dropping out at Christmas.
At 58, I am retired, after selling my successful business, and back at that same college (still have the same student number). I now take what I am interested in studying (Political Science) and love every minute of every class. As part of the curriculum, I take everything from German to Earth Science, with a solid core of Poli-Sci. The students razz me about "what it was like in the old days", and the professors treat me like a peer. I often shake my head at the number of empty seats during classes and wonder why the "kids" don't share the same love for the lectures as me. I am on the Dean's List with just under a 4.0 GPA.
So yes, I am in total agreement with what Mr. Bruni has written today. College is not a vocational school. It is a place to learn about life, get yourself out of your comfort zone, and soak everything up like a sponge. Folge deinen Traumen
1
@Bongo I had a great time as an undergrad and in medical school working on research projects, designing the sets for our community theater group, and studying abroad but by far my best academic years were when I returned to school for another graduate degree after having spent years working. I felt so much less stress about making good grades and was no longer shy about asking question in class or talking to the professor as a peer. It was easy connecting what I was learning to their applications in the real world. I also enjoyed my classmates, both young and old. I highly recommend it for anyone who has life circumstances to do it. My grad degree was paid for by the federal government through a program for mid-career professionals.
So for younger people, yes a year or two working or volunteering in the real world doesn't really put you behind and might help you focus more in college.
1
I respectfully disagree. I was 16 years old when I went to Wells College. I would not have been allowed to live alone at that age; nor could my family afford to send me abroad for a year as was recommended because of my age. I still enjoy the company of several classmates annually.One of my mentors, an English professor, died last December; we had been in touch at least annually since 1958. Was I both young and immature? Of course I was. I think much of my experience was because of the College ( which took a chance on me) and because things were very different in 1954; we were in a small school in a remote location and lived in a very protective environment. I cannot say what might have been different for me had I been 18. I do know things are very different now and I would not want my grandchildren to be as immature as I was, simply because there is so much more going on in this world. But I have much to be thankful for about my education and my enduring friendships in my 81st year. No regrets.
I agree 100%. I went to college in the early '70's at local public university. Two professors there took a keen interest in me, so much so that I changed my major which led to a fulfilling career. I am still grateful, all these years later, to Dr. Chadwick Karr and Dr. Hugh Lovell. Not only they did teach me and mentor me but they piqued my intellectual curiosity so much so that I still want to know the “how” and “why” of things I see and hear (unlike the incurious dolt who currently inhabits the White House).
Where you go to college is not nearly as important as what you make of the college experience. You really can do anything you put your mind to. But you will need to work hard and find that professor that who will help you along the way.
78
In other words, get to know your professors and fellow students, discuss ideas, and nourish relationships. Switch from a credentialing focus to life-skill building and networking. But why wait until college?
How well your data competes against someone else’s data should not be your sole focus until you get to college where the “real learning” begins.
In some schools, the pressure starts as early as preK. Credentials and name brands (“rated #1 by U.S. News and World Report!”) and checking off boxes matter more than the development of a thinking, creative, compassionate, connected human being.
Yes, that the stakes in college aren’t so bad—except that you’ll be in debt paying off your mistakes until the day you die. How about lowering the stakes in elementary through high school for starters?
We can do better beginning in the early grades, when schooling is free. Standardized tests make bureaucrats happy while wasting precious hours and fomenting stress and anxiety. Reject the developmentally inappropriate Common Core standards for the early grades and their casual dismissal of fiction and storytelling. Make 1st grade about 1st grade, 8th grade about 8th grade, and college about college instead of making K-12 education a pressure cooker that crushes souls. Maybe then we won't have so many college students who are anxious perfectionists who take Ritalin to study, microdose to be creative, and binge drink to socialize.
8
College has become a place for dating , hook ups and exercise machines. Not to mention that is is soooo corporate. Sadly, most majors and business majors and most faculty are poorly paid , part time adjunct professors .Learning ? Fuhgetaboutit.
5
@Howard Kaplan As an adjunct, I agree with you about the pay and about the corporate mentality of some schools. However, it really depends on the student and the college. My daughter just graduated from a top notch private university and had a good college experience (without binge drinking and hookups). She made some solid friends and, even though she was an economics major, studied dance and theater. It was the same experience I had many years ago.
1
@Howard Kaplan. . . sadly, yes . . . and it has been since i graduated with comp lit great books and history degrees . . .yeah, but it was something I will not take money for now, which it did not get me then
william wilson dalllas texas dallas press club 1981
1
The purpose of education is to limit your ignorance by being curious enough to be able to think and reason creatively, independently and originally. Knowing how to find, analyze and organize information is more important than getting a "correct" answer. Education does not begin nor end in college classes and courses.
2
The Off er of the College:
To be at home in all lands and all ages;
To count Nature a familiar acquaintance,
And Art an intimate friend;
To gain a standard for the appreciation of others’ work
And the criticism of your own;
To carry the keys of the world’s library in your pocket,
And feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake;
To make hosts of friends...
Who are to be leaders in all walks of life;
To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms
And cooperate with others for common ends –
This is the offer of the college for the best four years of your life.
Adapted from the original “Offer of the College”
by William DeWitt Hyde
President of Bowdoin College (1885-1917)
55
@Tom . . .I intended to write a long winded reply about the great books courses and my feeble degrees in comp lit and english history, yes, and I would do it again . . . I am reading Dostoyevsky for the third time, yes, and this is a much better answer . . . thank you
william wilson dallas texas dallas press club 1981
1
A lot of overlap/mutually-supportive advice/insights with a great book on the subject by a wonderful professor I was fortunate enough to have many years ago:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049024
I highly recommend it.
As someone who made many of those mistakes as a student and still went on to a thirty-year career teaching college, I can only state that Mr. Bruni has nailed it. His advice will resonate with experienced professors, and is well-supported by the research.
This piece should be required reading in all first-year seminars.
3
I attended college in the 1970s. I went to a state school where we were viewed as a source of cash rather than as students. Professors did not encourage us to have relationships with them outside of the classroom. Tests were fill in the bubble tests. The dorms were overcrowded and administration unaccessible except for ridiculous pronunciations from on high in order to justify their positions and salaries.
If we weren't A students (and I was not), we were not encouraged to go on to a higher degree. I found college to be a disappointing experience and much less educational than high school. Perhaps it was the rote learning that did it or it might have been the complete lack of interest professors had in all but the brightest students. Of course being shy didn't help but I was not the only student who felt shunned by professors. Quite a few of my dorm mates felt the same way.
If we want education as a whole to be a worthwhile experience for students we need to change how we educate them. Rote learning is wonderful up to a point. But testing with no feedback and no opportunity to learn from mistakes is useless. So is going to college and taking classes taught by professors who do not know how to teach. I had too many of those in college. There is no reason why professors teaching undergrads or grads should not know the basics of teaching a class, explaining a concept, and that one size teaching doesn't work.
11
As a North Carolina taxpayer, I'm pleased to read that in a small way I contributed to the education of Damian Walker. It is distressing when state budgets cut spending on science and liberal arts education yet the fire hose of money pours into the so-called "education" of athletes.
25
I went to college in the early 70's and was an introvert with high social anxiety.
As an 18 year old, I wish I had the wisdom to get treatment for my anxiety (if it existed back then). Anxiety is the worst thing for a college student as it is so isolating. Everything that Frank suggests in his column becomes doable once you are free of this cocoon. I wish I had access to this column back then. Real good advice.
42
Great article!
Colleges and students differ greatly, the resulting college-student interactions are too many to address with one broad brush.
My learning after 30 years as an educator may address a tiny sliver of this very wide spectrum. All what Frank says is true. Here is also what is true.
First, students are stressed; one too many must work to pay the bills. Education is not often primary; it leads them to sub-optimal choices. One choice is to tune out, go through the motions, accept defeat, and connect with the hyper reality through the cell phone and gaming that is decidedly more compelling. I remember being there.
Second, high school is described in terms associated with trauma (some minor, some major). Throw in an environment of adults who provided no feedback except encouragement - and we have a problem situation. I teach MBAs and seniors; they say they have never received the kind of negative feedback I give them, in their lives. Last semester a student told me he had felt coddled for too long, and appreciated the dry feedback. No one should have to wait until their early to mid twenties to be told that the work is substandard beyond measure.
Third, I am constantly amazed at the creativity and passion exhibited by some students. Not everyone is, but enough are. And for this reason, I have tried to bring my A game to every class over 30 years. I am not concerned, there are enough of these kids to produce a better tomorrow beyond current imagination.
1
College today in America?
I find it difficult to understand what students are paying for when they go to college. I mean what's the return on the investment? Here's what I understand about education at simplest: Constant attempt to improve quality of humans. But American life seems far more concerned with increasing the quantity of humans, "greatest happiness of greatest number".
For all vast increase of the population in America, all improvement in education, there seems no noticeable improvement in quality of presidents, writers, inventors, etc. in America. Actually probably the hard sciences have seen improvement, and fields such as music--and it's interesting that improvement in music has come from the street, not the academy.
Education in America seems to me still too groupthink, reward the system type behavior. Not a search for the best minds, the most profound characters to fill positions in society. Too nurture over nature and not a search for the profoundly and naturally talented like the search occurs with respect to sports.
In fact with respect to presidents of the U.S. we can argue profound decline in quality has occurred. We have a much greater number of people, more advanced education than the America of the 19th century, yet the quality of presidents we arrive at are people who can't even compose their own speeches, people who have speechwriters for them.
The big question in education is probably whether it's rigged against the best, most profound minds.
3
@Daniel12
College today in America?
I find it difficult to understand what students are paying for when they go to college.
-------------
According to this article, they're there to learn how to socialize, network and schmooze the professors during office hours.
I guess it's just the STEM majors that are there to consume knowlege that they need to know to advance not only their careers, but also the world. (You don't learn how to build better bridges by finding mentors to help you up the career ladder. Just like: You have to learn, and perfect, the scales before you can compose an original piece of art that adds to the world. Most of the people quoted here, like Condi Rice, are in political fields, not technical ones, so perhaps Mr. Bruni's advice is beneficial to both politics and journalism today where who you know seems to matter so much more than what you know... Ah, diversity values!)
3
As a university faculty member, I believe that this essay, or something like it, should be required reading for all entering freshmen.
3
Excellent advice. Parents, heed Mr. Bruni and advise your college-bound children to find mentors.
I attended a liberal arts college in the Midwest, and right away established good rapport with my faculty advisor. He helped me all the way through. He and two other professors in my major pushed me to consider graduate school, helped me land a spot in a prestigious study abroad program, and willingly wrote letters of recommendation. While the small size of the college (2,400 students) facilitated mentorship like this, students still must seek it out. Both my sons went to Berkeley. I worried that while Cal is a great university, they wouldn’t have the experience I did. I gave them the same advice in Mr. Bruni’s piece, and both thrived.
2
Perhaps some 18 year olds do not possess the courage or have developed the self confidence to approach professors and the like. It's easy to tell others what to do. It's most important for them to figure things and their lives out for themselves. Overall about half of college students don't have the grit and determination for much of it. Not everyone graduates in the top half of their class.
5
@Thomas
Really hard to accept is that you may be average,
no more. It's not necessary to accept that that is a bad thing. Bruni's point, I think, is to use your time in college to push at your own limits. He offers a guide from those with experience; true, those are all graduates who've gone on to some kind of success - but that is not his point. His point, I repeat, is to use your time in college to push at your own - your own - limits. Do YOUR best. Learn how to use YOUR failures. Practice picking yourself up off the floor accepting and using whatever comes to hand. And learn how to lend a hand. L&B&L
4
I am always interested in what Frank Bruni has to say, and most often wholeheartedly agree, but this column missed the mark for me. Perhaps it's because I attended college in the early 70s, but virtually no one I knew took such a sensible, strategic approach to attending college. I may have been unusual, but I gave virtually no thought to the practical application of classes, my major, or developing relationships with professors. One thing I definitely would have benefited from would have been a gap year -- or gap years -- before attending college. I think I was too young to gain anywhere near the full benefit of college. I took my education much more seriously later when attending graduate school on my own dime and not my parents'. I can't really take issue with Bruni's advice. It makes total sense to my 60-something self, but my 18-year-old self would never have been able to be so adult.
15
@Judy - I think that’s what Bruni acknowledges and is trying to emphasize. Many of us are first-gen college grads, and our parents thought of college as preparation for a decent entry-level job and eventual vocation, nothing less, nothing more. Bruni is helping today’s college students to be more expansive in pursuing their education - in class, out of class, with professors, on trips, etc. - in the world at large. Extraordinary advice, even more resonant for today’s striving families.
Having returned to college for a 'fun' degree and having interacted with numerous students in class, seminars and small groups, I think this essay misses the mark for the vast majority of students - they don't need an admonition to smell the roses along the way - they do that every school day.
What they do need is encouragement to simply 'do the hard work' of mastering knowledge - do the readings - explore some secondary readings - think about what they are saying on their own and within your growing understanding of the subject matter. And yes - visit with your profs - always vette your essay outlines [assuming you even do an outline] with your prof early in the term.
And quit surfing social media or playing a game during a class when I am trying to learn.
54
@SteveRR
Amen.
Nothing in here tells students how to actually study and master the material. Most students coming from even competitive high schools need to learn these skills.
My advice? 5 hours of outside studying for every one hour of class time. (You can study in groups with others, that's social too, without going in to schmooze the proffys.)
There will be plenty of time to "socialize" when you are in your early 20s, on your own paycheck, when you have landed a solid job with the skills and materials you mastered in college. Also: get a job. (Note, I didn't say: let someone else get you a job -- those personal contacts you are cultivating in your social study pursuits...)
Learning how to be independent and successful is just as important as learning how to fit into a group. In my view, that's more what's missing in college students today. They definitely know how to be social and to brown nose; figure out what the prof wants and regurgitate it back.
They don't know how to think for themselves.
How not to be part of the hive group-think.
If not during the university years, then when?
3
@SteveRR Indeed where Bruni says college is the easiest and cheapest time to do some of these things, it's more like a very expensive time for some of them. Get an employable degree, do it efficiently especially if you don't have superb financial aid.
The scholarship kid at UNC who graduated without a job and is in China teaching English is a success story in that he got through to a bachelor's degree. But otherwise his outcome isn't very impressive. Kudos to him for learning Mandarin though.
This is really more of an article on how to survive college and get through to a bachelor's degree, for those who might not otherwise do so. Bother the professors, don't study alone too much, don't sweat the major too much if the one you planned is too hard. I think the advice about not hesitating to use mental health services is good for everyone though. It's lonely out there in the field of the unknown, and sometimes it can help to have someone reliable to talk to.
@Midway Bruni's article is really about how to game and succeed in the system if you don't have strong skills. While useful for some, a hiring authority would do well to stay away from such products, to hire people who seem a bit less developed on those "skills for success". Maybe a good way to do it is to hire STEM graduates for most things. They couldn't have succeed just by following Mr. Bruni's advice, or give them a technical interview to make sure they learned their basic tech skills, then hire them for HR, Sales, or whatever roles you want to fill.
Thank you, Mr. Bruni. You are spot on.
During the recent college visitations for our two children, my husband and I were astounded how many colleges clearly expect students to know their major and life plan. Many colleges communicate clearly through curriculum and policy that they do not value academic exploration and treat college as vocational training school. Many colleges had no process to help students explore majors, if undecided.
Both of our children ended up at colleges that have a wide variety of college majors, have requirements to take courses in different academic areas, encourage academic exploration, and support students having “undecided” as their major.
College is about learning how to explore and think in new ways about academics, people, activities and yourself.
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I was incredibly lucky when I entered an Ivy League college with a full scholarship in the late 70's. I'd left home at sixteen and came with no parental expectations. (Indeed, I'd already lost one parent and the other one didn't live to hear news of my graduation.) I also knew exactly what I wanted to study: physics. It was, and remains, the most beautiful subject I've had the privilege to study.
That said, I was a kid in a candy store. I remember leafing through the course offerings every semester, wondering what literature and music and history and foreign languages I might study. I spent four years luxuriating in ideas and challenges and endless late night conversations about books and Noether's theorem and how the broken harmonic symmetries of Bach revolutionized music and why Chinese has no distinction between 'he' and 'she' in the spoken language.
I graduated with 150 credits when only 120 were required. I just couldn't take enough courses!
I continued in this vein through grad school--and to a lesser extent, in medical school--and built a wonderful adult life immersed professionally in science but filled with many other interests and side professions.
I hope young people nowadays are able to do the same; to see beyond the pre-professional purpose of college, beyond parental and peer expectations, and linger in the abundance of academia just for the thrill of engaging new ideas and subjects and people they might never meet anywhere else.
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@hammond- my path was quite similar but in the mid 1960's but my world came crashing down when I was drafted into the U.S. Army when my lottery number came up and I ended up on the front lines in Southeast Asia. The military war machine and the university system complex are two rather strange, artificial environments, polar opposites. I have not been able to reconcile them to this day.
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@hammond
Yes, you were very fortunate (full scholarship) and it was the 70's. In the 70's my quarter tuition was $225. You and I were able to take extra classes at a minimal cost.
Today taking those additional 30 credits of courses (that would be about 1 year) will cost $30K-$50K.
Young people today cannot do the same as you and I did.
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@hammond People with your drive and talent don't need Bruni's advice, nor are they the target audience. You were supported because you showed that talent early, and not by being a fixture at office hours.
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What a fantastic essay and a must read for ever (new) college instructor and professor out there. (That is, if they want to become true mentors and the kind of professor students remember long after they’ve graduated.) They could assign it as required reading to every incoming freshman, ask for a one page “5 key points I got out of this article” essay and require the students to grade themselves at the end of the first tri- or semester. I just forwarded it to my son who is embarking on a teacher career at MSOE, a small technical college in Milwaukee, WI hoping he will make it his first assignment ever.
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I attended 2 small liberal arts colleges in the early 70's. The first had a required core curriculum for the first 2 years. It exposed all of us to world history, literature, art/music, philosophy, and social science from prehistoric man to the beginning of WW2. I learned a great deal of academic humility, and became a much better writer, student, and human being because of the relationships I made there, especially with professors.
I then transferred to a private women's college wanting to go abroad as much as the opportunity to build relationships with other women without the distraction of sexual pressure (it WAS the 70's). My two terms abroad broadened my world view. (And by the way, I never declared a major until my last term -- too many courses to sample.)
My children also attended liberal arts programs: one at a small private university and the other at a state school. Both declared "useless" majors that they were passionate about. Both had mentors they are still in touch with. Both went on to graduate degrees; one became an audiologist and one earned an MFA. In her audiology program (a clinical doctorate), she was the only one of the students who was able to write at the doctoral level, and the only one who did not have an undergraduate degree in speech hearing.
Remove the pressure to fit into the world's (and parents") insistence on fitting into an economic box. The purpose of education is to take and empty mind and turn it into an open one.
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First generation college students often have to take economics into consideration because they want or need to help their families as soon as they graduate. While I was away at a private school in Boston, my mother worked in a plastics factory 12 hours per day, six days a week. It's great that neither you nor your children had that weight on your shoulders.
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Fantastic piece of well-researched advice, Mr. Bruni. Great to see you come roaring back. I hope that you are feeling better and doing well. Your writing sure is.
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Mr. Bruni - Incredibly spot on. Ethics of our Fathers/Pirkei Avot in Hebrew gives very similar advice more than 2000 years ago. "Yehoshua ben Perachia said: Make for yourself a rabbi, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every person favorably." Go hang out and learn from your professors - find a mentor. Make friends - new friends, also people you can learn from. And read and talk and listen - with an open mind. Those are the essences of the successful college experience. and they are the building blocks of a successful life. Proud to say that both my daughters understood this advice and followed it. A joy to see. And a joy to read your column.
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As a former academic myself, I have to say this is spot on. I sent it to both of my teeneage kids who are getting ready for college.
The life of the mind is sadly neglected in American culture and we are all poorer for it.
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Frank Bruni brings into focus a topic often asked later in life. The value and cost of higher education. As a student and faculty member for over fifty years my take on this question is two-fold. One, it is not ALL about the money. Second, where you study does make a BIG difference. First, the money: there are many, many high quality schools with a wide variation in cost-- try to find the best match for you. Second, and this is actually much more important and difficult to judge. Try to attend a real university. A real university is one with no fraternities or sororities, where 18 year old students meet and study with students from other regions of the country and world with viewpoints different from their own. Where faculty and students have thought provoking discussions and seminars. Where the daughter of a pig farmer is respected for her contributions as much as the son of a hedge-fund billionaire. Where philosophy majors are just as valued as engineers and where the debate team attracts more fans than the football team. If you go to a REAL university, your life will be enriched and you will be able to prepare yourself for professional and personal challenges and rewards you never dreamed of at 18.
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I graduated from undergrad in 2010; studied literature (yes, laugh!); today, work in marketing and make a good living. BUT none of where I am today can be attributed to anything I learned in college. In fact, I was so unprepared for the "working world" upon graduation I didn't even know what the job titles (Coordinator, Associate, Vice President, etc.) event meant. ("What was business development?!") I got my first job out of college in a marketing dept. at a media company largely because I had a side job copy-writing for an entrepreneur's book. I'm great at my job today, but everything I learned about working and digital marketing, I learned on the job. Looking back, college was just a signaling thing, probably to tell employers that I could "conform" and graduate like I was supposed to. But "signaling" was def. not worth the student loan debt that I will finally be paying off in 2020!
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I found it hard to believe that you did not learn anything of value by studying literature.
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@Roberta. I don't know any job where most of what you learn is not 'on the job.' And I say that having 'professed' for over fifty years.
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I wish @Roberta, who is "great" at her job now, well. Her comment is a terrific illustration of the essay's point that I found most salient--that it's important to have a peer relationship with one's college institution, rather than simply milk it for credit hours, to find the experience significant. For Roberta, "college was just a signaling thing," going through the motions to appear qualified for some future experience she could value. She is not alone in this approach. I've "professed" for 25 years and I notice that university has become what high school used to be, for many: a required holding ground, a place to simply put in time until moving on to something that matters. Frank Bruni, how about a series of essays on how to delay or avoid college in meaningful and affordable ways, and how our society can support those choices?
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The best advice I got was to always introduce yourself to the professor on the first day of class. This isn't always possible but it's easier than you think. You might not always like the professor. However, the gesture helps establish a relationship which makes attending office hours and responding to emails friendlier and more comfortable. You don't need to be an academic superstar but you don't want to be anonymous either. It's easier to ask for help and guidance when you both know each other.
The advice I would add: Stay engaged with campus events and activities. These are often lame, tedious, boring, or down right abusive. I once spent an entire night toggling the fuse switch on a generator so another student could finish his senior film. However, you get to know the communities, both student and academic, surrounding the various areas that might interest you. If you find a specific passion, my advice is to haunt the department relentlessly. You'll find a mentor.
A word of caution though. Most academics are really only good at teaching you how to become an academic. Even the best mentors have a tendency to leave students woefully under prepared for their private sector lives. College is about learning how to learn. That's not the same thing as a finding a job where you're happy and successful. I suggest you spend some time exploring how your skills and interests might translate into the real world. Don't panic; nothing is permanent. A little forethought helps though.
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@Andy
Definitely go to office hours.
Don't go shake hands with the professor at the end of the first class. If he/she is like me (a full-time, non-tenure system professor at a large state school), the prof. will have a 100 or so students in their various classes. A handshake on the first day does little.
Go to office hours after a week or two of class when the prof has had a chance to connect names and faces, and has had a chance to get a sense of individuals. After that, drop by a couple of times a month ready to talk about substantive things.
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@TexasBrown
It's more for the students piece of mind than the professor's.
The student feels more comfortable approaching someone they know.
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@TexasBrown Talk to the professor about substantive things??? How about try to learn the material presented in class? Do well in class and the professor will know who you are.
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This essay is spot on. In my 30+ years as a professor, I've noticed how students increasingly avoid getting to know their professors, and how much this hurts their chances for success beyond college.
Students used to come to office hours far more frequently in the past than they do now. Instead, they use electronic communication (email, contact forms on course websites, etc) to ask questions, and even that has become increasingly rare. Too many now even want to simply download lecture notes in order to avoid going to class. Then, somewhere down the line, they contact their professors to ask for letters of recommendation for jobs or graduate study, sometimes even saying something like, "I know I didn't come to office hours much, but I can stop by this afternoon so you can spend a few minutes getting to know me better." That's not how mentoring or career advancement works.
Too many don't see the point of developing a wide network of peer relationships, yet these relationships typically turn out to be crucial later in life. The students we meet in college often turn out to be future coworkers, bosses, or employees.
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It's all about grit and resilence, i.e, learning how to aim high, miss your mark, and recover.
Redefine success:
- Aiming low and hitting your target is not success.
- Aiming high, falling short for the 'right reasons', learning from the experience, and moving on IS success!
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Great article, long overdue. Much more useful than a graduation speech or college prep advice. Can I add two points? If you are attending a [Tier One] research university, please get into a lab and do some research. I assure you, professors don't bite. You can ask them if they have an opportunity in their lab. You might get credit or pay for lab work. Even if you don't want to get a PhD / do research, you will be taking the best advantage of the opportunities available. If you are one of the ones Bruni addresses who live with parents and pray for parking, you can still do this, and it will be much more enlightening and engaging than just taking courses. The other thing to note is that you will be much more successful if you don't take a 30+ hour per week job. If you have to have a job, get one on campus where they understand your studies come first, or for a local employer used to hiring college students. In my area, UPS hires college students and understands that their studies come first. Don't let any employer coerce you into more hours than is good for your studies. Good luck. College is what you make of it. You could go to MIT and slack around, or a state school or community college and really push the limits of what that school offers. It is up to you and your hard work, organization and focus. (And don't drink. Even collecting a set of drinking buddies is not worth it. I say this knowing you are likely to drink anyway, but everything in moderation.)
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Sigh... I'm 67 now ... and I think it is desperately important not to engage in "by-crackee" nonsense with our young people ("When I was your age, we walked 40 miles each way uphill in the snow to get to school")
I grew up in the 60s in the SF Bay Area. I was a pretty smart kid, but frankly I went to college with the primary objectives of "sex, drugs, rock and roll ... lead me to it!", staying out of the draft, ... and by the way I also loved physics.
I managed to not blow my brains out, not catch any diseases, not go to Viet Nam (thanks to tricky Dicky ending the war at the penultimate moment for me) ... and learn some physics, though I didn't become the physicist of my 18-year-old imagination.
Expecting kids just out of their teenage years to manage college as though they are some dry 60-something banker is ridiculous, and it can only be the result of two things:
1. a willful suppression of memories of your salad years, and
2. extreme parental anxiety about the cost of college now, and consequences of debt
The latter is a real problem, but trying to turn 20-somethings into instant 60-year-olds is not a solution.
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Excellent, thank you. I’ll share this with my wise but teenaged kid who is equipped to do just about anything.
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Well, Mr. Bruni, you nailed it once again. Not only are you the most eloquent advocate and visionary in the realm of higher education/academia, but you bring your personal experience and relationships to the heart of the matter. I worked as an educator, advisor, counselor and mentor in my thirty plus years in higher education and still receive notes and invitations from former students. Investment in the human heart/person will pay dividends for the rest of your life and change lives at the same time.
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Frank, I agree with all of your points here. As someone who worked with students in college for 30 years I would stress these things you mentioned. how important it is to
1 Seek internships. NOT necessarily as a "vocational" step, but by using professors and others on campus to guide them, students can learn a lot about what kind of work they do and don't like and even more about working with people.
2. Study abroad For a year if you can, for a summer if that's all you can do. The cultural differences and your ability to adapt to them will give you joy and expand your view of the world. All things that will prepare you for a fulfilling life.
3 If you have work-study (or even not) one great way to connect with your college is to get a job on it. 10 hours a week is best. You'll have built-in mentors in the staff/faculty you work with.
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I have built several partnership businesses with higher ed institutions, both attended and been a part of a family where the norm was highly selective privates and advanced degrees, you outline a challenge for students that is reflective of the very problem with higher education. Higher education only notionally cares about the students and their outcomes. Your entire article essentially outlines the burden of student and ignores the responsibility of the institutions. Ask a university professor what the graduation rate for their institution is. As how they would measure success for their students (access to the best graduate schools? 10 post graduation salary? Distinguished accomplishment in the field of their choice?). What one would find is that there is a complete disconnect between faculty, the institution and students. In the majority of selective national and R1s, state flagships, selective liberal arts schools, faculty success in their careers is simply detached from student success. Sadly, the system has priced it's product at unattainable levels for most families and refuses to be accountable for student success.
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@Chris The job of say, a college math professor, is to provide students with the opportunity to learn mathematics. They cannot guarantee that all come in with the same preparation, that all will graduate college, that all will get into the best graduate schools, that all will have distinguished accomplishments in their field of choice or that all will be in 1%.
You are asking the college professor to make them all, well, perfect. Afraid it can't be done. The professor would be doing fantastic if he can get them all to learn some math.
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You overgeneralize.
I and many, many of my colleagues care deeply about our students’ success, and understand success in meaningful terms.
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The undergrad years can be wonderful. But let’s face it, for many, if not most, the typical undergraduate education in literature, science, and the arts, is an excessive relic of the past; and should be replaced by a public system of trade schools.
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@Doctor The excess focus on practicality isn’t a lot of what is wrong with america today. It leads to people who haven’t exercised their imaginations and see no values other than money. As a result, they ignore the much greater values of people, arts, literature, learning, thinking, the natural world. They all end up poorer and sadder as a result. This attitude is a big part of why america faces such massive problems.
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Oh no. Knowing our culture and our history is important and adds immensely to the enjoyment of life.
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@Zejee No disagreement. Just don't think an intelligent person needs a LS&A degree to become a successful person. Professional schools seem to agree.
I sent both my children, a daughter and a son, to small, prestigious four-year liberal arts colleges. I also encouraged them to study whatever they wanted, and to take full advantage of what their schools' curricula as well as extracurricula offerings. Neither focused on particularly "practical" areas of study. One them spent a year abroad in Rwanda and Uganda. Both are sensitive readers, both are facile in conversation, and both are eloquent writers. They know how to think, they know how to communicate. Now in their post-graduate years, both are reaping the benefits--material and otherwise--of their educations.
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Thank you mr Bruni for this timely article. I forwarded it to my grandson who is in his first year and I hope he will not only read and understand it but use the advice to advance his life to a good place. Thanks again
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College, so many opportunities, so many misses. Wish I had read this before going. Still, my wanderlust spirit, extracted more benefits than negatives. Such riches for the mind, the spirit, and the overall well being. I went back seversal times, ten or so years apart. And now, with internet, one has the world to roam and learn about. So for young and old readers, take these insights, savor them and go back to the wells for more.
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Lots of good advice here.
I especially liked the advice of the physicist at Brown:
“You have to ask yourself what lies closest to your heart.”
“If you are fortunate enough to find something that you’re totally obsessed with, you’re likely to work very hard at it.
If you’re a human being of average intelligence and you work very hard at something, you’re likely to become very good at it."
And others will notice.
Yes, you need to pursue something that clearly interests you, and that hopefully you love (though most adults in the real world have jobs that they may partly love, but also usually have several negatives associated with them ... such is real life unfortunately).
But I really liked the emphasis the professor made on the necessity of hard work. That seems to get left out of a lot of advice for young people coming up in the world today.
Yes, you may pursue your dream and what interests you, but to really be successful and attain true higher knowledge, hard work and perseverance and years of life experience will also be required. That also is real life.
And having a fallback plan B if the dream doesn't pan out is also a real world necessity.
Good luck to all going to college today.
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