By the time you graduate from Hopkins, you’ll likely have over 120 credits from roughly 40 classes. For many majors, the classes you must take are clearly outlined and often end up giving you a basic understanding of a particular subject. If you are willing, you can even add a second major and multiple minors, thereby expanding your qualifications, knowledge, and thinking abilities.
However, no matter how hard you try, it will be impossible to gain a full education by simply spending time in the classroom.
At a school like Hopkins, though, many people spend all their ‘learning’ efforts solely on classes and spend whatever free time they have relaxing and having fun. This culture creates an enormous missed opportunity for many students – the opportunity to learn outside the classroom.
Let’s first look at student organizations. Here at Hopkins we have several hundred vibrant student groups, from cultural organizations to academic societies to fraternities to sports clubs to publications.
Some people at this school will immediately say “hah! I don’t have time to waste on boring meetings and lame events, I have to go study for Calc some more!” Student Organizations however offer an education that will prove just as essential to your education and life as your classes.
As a member and officer of any club, you will learn extremely valuable skills such as organization, leadership, public speaking, working on a team, organizational dynamics, negotiating, persuasion and budgeting – all skills that are not directly developed in classes.
Many clubs offer very specific educational benefits as well – whether they are acquiring a new language, learning a martial art, about a culture, business skills, how to write or more. All these skills will prove far more valuable to you in your career and personal life both in the short and long term than how to solve a 10 x 10 Gauss-Jordan by hand or being able to instantly recall all the isomers of some alcohol compound with 15 carbon atoms.
The university itself also provides numerous lectures or other enrichment experiences (such as Intersession) for learning beyond the standard regular class. Sadly all too often we find these lectures either totally empty or packed with only graduate students.
There is also another self-concept that many people our age haven’t come to realize how valuable and rewarding it is – self-education.
How many people nowadays, between doing problem sets, running off to meetings, playing video games and hanging out with friends have time to simply go into the depths of the library or a bookstore and simply browse and read the books? D-Level isn’t just an enormous study room with random decorations that look like books.
Leonardo da Vinci was completely self-educated in music, science, engineering, geology and botany. Benjamin Franklin dropped out of school at the age of 10 and from thereafter gained his entire education on science, engineering, history, law and much more just from spending most of his free time reading books.
Abraham Lincoln only had 18 months of formal education from those he described as incompetent teachers – the rest our brilliant president’s education came all from his own thinking and voracious reading.
I often hear people say that they wish they could learn more about a certain subject but don’t have time in their class schedule to take it – what I say to them is: then go learn about it yourself!
With dedication, willpower, and perseverance one can gain an unbelievable amount of education from simply teaching oneself.
One can master languages (as the famous interpreter and translator Kató Lomb did, who mastered 10 languages on her own), become an expert on history and politics, proficient in law (up until the past century, Americans could pass the bar exam simply by reading books on their own rather than going to law school – that’s how Andrew Jackson did it), mathematically brilliant and scientifically keen.
Theodore Roosevelt saw the value of self-education too, for even as President he continued to read one to two educational books a day.
One quiet evening, take a night off and head to the library – not to do homework, study for exams or browse Facebook, but just to look through the shelves and read what catches your interest. You won’t regret it, and maybe you’ll even come back for more.
College is a wonderful opportunity to learn and expand your vision and understanding of the world without the pressure of a 40-60 hour a week job, bills to pay, chores to do, and a family to raise all tiring you out. Don’t waste it.
