Two things happened to me a few days ago that were ostensibly unimportant; but retrospectively striking.
The first thing that happened, was that a professor in a seminar I’m in this year asked the class, following our lively discussion of the week’s course material, what practical value we felt the course held, out of curiosity. At first, she was met with blank stares – this is, after all, a group of students taking a seminar, largely, I surmised, because this seminar so happened to be on an awesome topic. One student articulated this, noting that she was in the class out of academic interest – and what’s wrong with that, really? Undergrad would seem the time to learn about that which interests you, and not hesitate in that pursuit. There was some rambling about practical skills that could be gained from the course on my own part – and I maintain that beyond the value of the reading and assignments, any experience in a seminar setting has its own practical application – but it was agreed that it was a question perhaps worth returning to at the end of semester.
The second thing that happened, was that a cousin of mine, to whom I had recently sent a necklace I made in the mail, wrote on my Facebook wall thanking me for the jewelry. She added jokingly that perhaps I could make a career out of it – and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she meant that in the most complimentary, just-because-she-loves-the-necklace, not-at-all-related-to-the-value-of-my-undergraduate-degree sort of way. But still, it made me think. I absolutely love my program at U of T – I am beyond impressed with the amazingly precise, fascinating topics I have been able to study. But when I tell people what I’m studying, following a measure of curiosity, I am met with the question of what my plans are for after the completion of my degree. Will I need to find something else to make a career out of, when all is said and done? Will I end up doing something that is so far removed from my degree that these years won’t retain their meaning for me?
Which brings me to the present.
There is a certain preoccupation I have noticed for some time now with getting from point A to point B. Everything in life gets you from one point to another; everything is a trajectory. High school is a Point A that gets you to university, college, or whatever path you so choose or fall into – Point B. And the formula is easily applied specifically to university as well: undergrad is a Point A that can lead you to quite a selection of Point Bs: medical school, law school, graduate school, teacher’s college, straight into your career… There are many opportunities; but so far, in second-year, I don’t find that people (including third-years) have such a quick answer regarding what their plan is after undergrad, where as high school students seem to know their trajectory earlier on.
I’ve seen a lot of jokes lately on the internet and on television (notably on Daniel Radcliffe’s appearance on Saturday Night Live, in a hilarious and clever sketch called “You Can Do Anything”), poking fun at the age we live in for producing a generation that is ‘entitled’ in the sense of being encouraged to do anything we want, rather than forced into studying for obviously practical occupations. I do find it quite funny, and I think a lot of students share the sentiment that they can laugh at their lack of a clear trajectory or obvious practical application for their degrees. But that’s not to say that straight A science students who are obviously going to medical school, or political science majors who could have told you on your first day at U of T that they were going to law school, are any better than any other student, just because they have a very clear Point B.
A third thing happened to me, a few days ago. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, in a science program (but without a clear Point B as well), and she was telling me something really interesting she learned in a psychology class. It reminded me a lot of something I learned in a history class, which I then told her, and then we spent an hour or so discussing this historical anecdote I had offered in the context of this psychological phenomenon she had learned about.
Here’s what I’m getting at: there is a certain preoccupation with Point A and Point B – but for your undergrad experience to really resonate with you, you need to go beyond that line of thinking. This is a time to learn, so unique to any other academic experience you’ll ever have. This is about practical skills, certainly, and in any classroom at U of T, science, arts, engineering, you are guaranteed to gain those in one way or another, in the experience of attending lecture; taking notes; participating; writing, and so on. Of course, this is about Point B; getting the grades you need to get there, figuring out what you want that to be. But the essence of undergrad, as I see it, is developing a worldview; learning what your interests are and becoming a scholar in those fields; not just reading and writing about the world, but engaging with it, from whichever standpoint appeals to you. This is a time, more than to achieve high marks and get to the next step, to become intellectually actualized, establishing this new toolbox of knowledge that you can continually reference and build upon in your life.
U of T, for certain, is an excellent Point A; worth fully appreciating the pause, before rushing off to Point B. It’s not what you’re studying here, or where you’re going next, that makes your experience worthy: it is your engagement with your studies, the impressions that permanently mark your point of view; not the grades and the diploma and the plans you leave here with, but the person you leave here as.
