5 Responses

1. Ashley

   March 5th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

   1

   As a Northeastern University student in her fourth year, and currently “on co-op,” I can relate to this paper quite well. Let me begin with a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery that I in-turn am taking from a book I am currently reading, “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman (I know, how fitting)- “It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” What is essential in life, whether it be relationships, lessons, or career choices, are indeed typically invisible to the beholder. When I apply that to my own career choices, I knew what I saw on TV and formed notions about what I could see myself doing for the rest of my life- architecture. Those who know me well, now, would not have been able to guess that was my career choice once upon a time. Because then, through experiences I had in the last few years of high school I discovered I was in fact awful at mathematics and had an undying passion for meeting and talking to people. Any kind of people; I wanted to hear their story and what they thought of it. It was the most inspiring education I had ever endured and by the standards of an academic education, it wasn’t to be considered education at all. Just conversation with strangers.. But the rest was history. I entered Northeastern University in the fall of 2005 as a journalism major.

   And that’s the intriguing thing about experience as education. It was not my prior educational experiences that made me form a passion for broadcasting and people; I had never taken part in broadcasting education of any kind. It was my life experiences, beginning with my nurturing as a young child, my position in my family and community, and other life experiences that molded me into who I am and conditioned me for this career choice. Typical, I will call it, “academia as usual” does not pick up on the simple fact that students are more than mere pupils, but knowledgeable individuals and young adults as well. They are not blank slates joining an institution of higher education, they possess attributes that can be contributed and benefit all around them, fellow students and instructors alike. With experiential education, a student comes into the university with an end-point in mind, and as intimidating as it may be to choose a major right off the bat your freshmen year, through an experiential education that first instinctual career decision is molded, sometimes thrown away and restarted, until the end result is compassion for a career choice that you can not only live with, but love for the rest of your life.

   Life seems to be centered on the academia as usual concept. But what is lost with this concept is the fact that a person is a well-rounded being, with feelings that trigger decisions and thoughts. A book or lecture will not make you a whole being, but you as a whole being is what you will eventually be bringing into a workplace. A book will teach you about someone or something else and about their accomplishments, not about yourself and what YOU love and what YOU are capable of.

   As for the Value Proposition of higher education, consider this analogy- a child is offered two scenarios; if she can wait one month without eating a candy bar then she will be given eight candy bars for her patience, two for each week she waited. Yet, if she cannot wait, she can have one candy bar right now. People who pass on higher education because they fear for the cost or being a “poor” college student and living without for a few years are truly missing out on the chance for inner growth, in my opinion the greater reward, the “eight candy bars.” As a first generation college graduate I made the decision to attend a more expensive, private college institution because of its cause; the experience.
   It is your environment that helps to dictate actions and who you are. An academic environment fosters growth that is unlike an other. Then, once you factor in an experiential higher education experience, the possibility for growth becomes multi-faceted because not only are you learning and interacting with people who see you as a student, but you begin circulating around people in a workplace who see you as a young adult and a necessity to their organization; the most beneficial “double-life” anyone who hopes to feel content with their life path while achieving success could ever want to lead. Money aside, an experiential education gives that “bang for your buck” in the relationships you make both in and outside your university atmosphere.

   Next, to touch upon the questions posed from an experienced co-opper’s point of view-

   a) I believe the characteristics of out-of-the-classroom experiences that induce students to fully realize their potential and b) the steps that help students to deeply learn from their experiences and integrate their out-of-the-classroom and in-classroom learning both involve some aspect of failure. As backward as that may seem, since I am sure we all strive for success, it is the mistakes we make that we will build off of.

   In an academia as usual environment one’s failure belongs to only them. They depend solely on themself in most cases for attendance and grade point averages. When the platform is moved into a real-life, functioning environment where failure affects the many others around them, what one learns, does, thinks, and contributes becomes real, too. The fact that society has fixated itself on reality TV is not merely a phenomena- we as people are interested and gravitate toward what is real. We want to belong and need and feel needed. And when you fail at a task or at a dream in real life it impacts you more than failing a test ever will. It is something you learned for yourself and could have caused a tinge of remorse. Just like touching a hot stove; you learned from your lesson and wont make the same mistakes again. I thought I wanted to pursue public relations my freshmen year and got my first co-op position at a PR firm here in Boston. I found out I hated PR and its mechanical way of marketing a client. My “dream,” if you will, failed. But I, in turn, grew and prospered from this negative experience. To know what we want, I am a firm believer that it is essential to first know what it is that we do NOT want. Consider another analogy- experiential education as a juvenile record of sorts. We earn up to three chances to test-drive a potential career. If things go well, we can use these experiences as stepping stones to move forward and follow our dreams. If they go poorly then once we graduated we can lock them safely away and head in a different direction; no harm done (unless you REALLY messed it up, of course).

   The failures I have made while on co-op were mistakes or decisions I learned from and I have taken with me throughout my life from there on out. They helped to guide myself onward and mold my career choices. If I had not done a co-op in a PR for PR’s sake company I might have continued my education focused on that career, graduated, and hated my career and wasted valuable years in higher education. I feel fortunate for every mistake I have made.

   Moving on to key characteristics of the student experience, the most important aspect of the student experience is the experience in itself. We as people are never finished. What I mean by that is that we learn something new every hour or so without even realizing it. We learn from the moment we are born to the day we die. Therefore, to be technical perhaps, we are always students. Study doesn’t end once we graduate from an academic institution. It can be fostered and developed more thoroughly, however, in an academic environment. But I think the key characteristic of the student experience is learning how to be a human. Touching back on what I spoke about earlier about learning about ourselves, we as people must learn empathy, sympathy, and compassion for others, because it is only then that we can be well-rounded and know ourselves better. We will learn more efficiently and contribute our 137 percent to society if we know ourselves and are comfortable and happy in our own shoes. With each co-op experience I have learned a little more about myself. I have made everlasting friendships and sense of confidence around my student peers as well as middle-aged members of management.

   I did not intend for this response to be a book, however, now to finally comment on the importance of EI in combination of academia or alone in life in general-

   Typically, what cannot be quantitatively “graded” is usually cut out in current academia. There has been talk for years concerning standardized testing and how they are “unfair, yet necessary” methods to gauge performance. I once took a class in which the professor assigned no actual assignments. He expected us to write daily in a journal, show up to class on time every day and contribute to class discussions. To you reading this, this sounds like a student’s dream. No assignments? Awesome! But no, more than half the students in the class freaked out. What do you mean we don’t have assignments? How will I know what grade I am getting? It was my first glimpse into the hard fact that my entire life will not be graded by standardized testing and letter grading. It was about conducting myself and expressing my beliefs and my point of view effectively, and being open to receiving other people’s actions and opinions respectfully. To this day it was the most powerful class I have ever taken in my life and I wanted more.

   In conclusion, by attending a university with an experiential education program I have not only developed as an academic student, but as a young woman, as well. I am more confident in my decisions, and my manner than I think I would have been as an undergraduate at a non-experiential education institution. Through my real-life failures and successes as an undergraduate I feel like I am poising myself for a happier, more well-rounded future. Unlike the students mentioned in the beginning of this paper who used their experiential education experiences to further pursue their known dreams and goals, I have thus far used my own to test my journey. I truthfully do not know what I want to do for the rest of my life, but because of co-op experiences I have been able to cross a few things off my short-list. I am for the most part still searching and my seemingly non-decision has brought me to my decision to pursue a graduate degree. I can look back at the freshmen I used to be and reflect upon the development I have made, academic successes and personal growth combined has made me who I am.

   The beauty of it all, I believe, is that in life we are not all alike. We do not learn the same, or take the same lessons out of an experience. By spreading the word of experiential education I feel like “academic” doors would open to those individuals who believe that “college isn’t for them” and revolutionize education as we know it by finally, as you said it best, educating the whole student.

2. Jim

   March 6th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

   2

   Ashley,
   Thank you for the substantial comment. I also found it “authentic” to make a pun on something that appears in the Northeastern University strategic plan that experiences should be both substantial and authentic to be transfomative and that is what is wanted to compliment classical acadmic education. The key is how we do it. How do we better engage students in learning in and out of the classroom? You decribe some powerful experiences both places and have given us much about which to think. Let us keep going and do that thinking.
   -Jim

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