The best things about being a college student.
Before I went to college, a friend of my mom told me, "College is the best time of your life, but its not all that great." At the time, I viewed this as just old-folk ramblings, but after 10 years as a student in higher education, I now view this as spot-on in terms of the experience. College students obtain a great deal of intangible value from on campus living and face-to-face learning.
Back in my day, in addition to hiking 10 miles uphill in the snow both ways to class, university students were housed in modest accommodations. By modest, I mean not gulag cramped, but more like prison cramped. Sleeping areas were shared by two students in a roughly 15x20 foot room equipped with pull out beds, a dresser, a small area for hanging clothes, a small desk, and a single sink. Restroom and shower areas were communal with a floor of 30-40 men sharing. Meals were taken at prescribed times with a redundant menu. Men were housed in one wing of the dorm and women in the adjacent wing. Opposite sex visitors were not allowed after a specified hour. The roof leaked in some of the common areas, rooms were either too cold or too hot, parking was not convenient with most vehicles being about a mile from your dorm. I think there may have been a shuttle, but all of us simply walked.
In response to the challenges, students were forced to adapt and solve their own problems. When possible, you selected a roommate pledging a fraternity, so they would rarely be around. Some students disassemble their dorm room and rearranged the builtin furniture to better match their preferences. You developed a sort of extrasensory perception to avoid being scalded in the shower when someone flushed a toilet upstairs. Ranch dressing became your friend when chicken-fried mystery meat was served for the third time in a week. Heavy text books did double duty as learning aids and make-shift dampers to control the airflow into your room. Running errands early in the morning improved the chances of getting a parking spot near the dorm. In short, students developed the powerful life skill of solving their own problems.
Now I'm not shy, but I am powerfully introverted. I must have prolonged sessions alone in the quiet. The dorms were not designed for this personality trait. But, the experience was valuable and a sizable fraction of the university's value was gained in the dorms, such as developing resilience and tolerance in the face of less than ideal conditions. As with many useful learning experiences, this was not designed by educators or administrators, but simply a product of the necessity for inexpensive housing by undergraduate students. As an example, it was not socially acceptable to dine alone. Even introverts knew not to be looser sitting all by themselves. As a result, everyone learned to approach a table, politely ask if a vacant seat was available, and engage in small talk. I met some of the best people while crammed into the dorm, and I was forced to find solutions to feed my introverted personality. Introvert needs were met by early morning campus walks, long sessions in the library, and driving farm to market roads looking for birds of prey. I met my favorite person in college, and we have been married for 30 years. At no other time, with the possible exception of military service, will you have the exposure to such a variety of people in an atmosphere of shared suffering ... it is really, really, really good for a young person.
Most of my courses were unremarkable and easily forgotten. Turns out separating the wheat from the chaff also applies to college education. Let's be clear though, this is an individualized process with other students getting value from courses that I may have simply viewed as ticking a requirement off the list. What were the exceptional courses that I remember? Mammalogy ranks high. I did not learn much mammalogy, but the instructor was a true expert with decades of experience, and I learned more about science from Dr. Robert Baker than I did from any other professor. Range plants was interesting, and you really have not truly studied hard until awakened by nightmares involving the Latin names of grasses and flowers. I took an English course at a community college in Midland Texas, that was memorable. I've forgotten the instructor's name, but the in-class discussions (often about non-English topics) and the grading policy of an "F" for a single misspelled word in a term paper was painfully useful. I also gained an appreciation of poetry from this English professor. I don't read poetry very often, but I admire the poetry in music lyrics a great deal. I am still a wretched speller, but I am much better at proofing and checking. I find it paradoxical that most of my biology and chemistry courses have been forgotten, but my graduate, post-doctoral, professional research, and employment have been largely biomedical and biochemical in character. Go figure.
However, I do remember taking science labs. One of the key reasons that a degree in natural sciences is "better" than most other degrees is the abundance of laboratory sections taken. Feel free to disagree, but the average science major spent very nearly twice as much time in the classroom as other majors. Don't get me wrong, labs are a pain, but labs also show students how the actual work of the industry is done. This showing is simulated, but it can be a useful complement to standard book and lecture learning. Reading about chromatography is useful, but not nearly as useful as utilizing the technique to separate pigments from leaves. The combining of abstract concepts, such as chemical separation, with a now its your turn to do it in the real, can be a powerful learning approach that provides tangible value in the future.
Graduate school, in the sciences, is amazing when it comes to accessing equipment that you otherwise would NEVER have the opportunity to use. The development of a thesis or a dissertation has some level of value, I suppose, but my access to the doing of real science was hands down the most valuable. As a graduate student, I've sequence DNA, used radioactivity to evaluate biological processes, cloned genes, purified cellular components with high speed centrifuges, synthesized and separated chemicals with high-performance liquid chromatography, measured the mass of molecules with mass spectrometers, done numerous surgeries, produced antibody in mice and rabbits, and used both scanning and transmission electron microscopes. It has been a privilege that few will experience.
June 7, 2023