Here is my list of unsolicited advice for college students, based on my past few years of teaching.
1. Early to bed, early to rise. It sounds crazy when you're in college, but being asleep by 11 and up by 7 is really good for you.
2. Take advantage of office hours. Don't use them to talk about your personal problems or personal life, but to talk especially about course-related material with your professors. Ask them specific questions about material covered in class, about papers you're writing, about tests you're preparing for. Believe the answers you might get.
3. Use proper e-mail etiquette when communicating with your professors.
4. When you work, work. When you play, play.
5. Learn to shut off the distractions and just work, or just reflect, or just do something that doesn't involve distractions, particularly of the electronic kind.
6. Pay attention to the syllabus.
7. Stop thinking you turned out fine. You haven't turned out yet. You still need to simmer in the oven a bit before you really know how you "turned out."
8. Eschew presentism. The past is at least as interesting as the present. The medieval period is relevant. Antiquity matters. Old is not bad.
9. Read. Read, read, read. Learn to read things that are long, several hundred pages long.
10. Find a way to get off campus and be with people who are not 18-22, in college, etc.
11. Don't start putting your things away when the professor is still talking.
12. Come to class a little early if you can and review your notes, and prepare your mind for what is coming.
13. You are in college to learn. The best learning happens in the classroom, at the library, when you are studying, when you are reading, writing. Important learning also happens in clubs and activities, but that kind of learning is not as important. I know that you think it is, but it really isn't. I know that glitzy college brochures tell you that it is, but it really isn't.
14. Sesame Street was wrong. Learning and having fun are not the same thing. Learning can be fun, but often it is not. It can be, must be, strenuous to be meaningful. Learning is especially not entertainment. The two are nearly antithetical.
15. You are in college to work. You should put in two hours outside of class for every hour spent inside class. Sometimes more, especially if it's in something that's a weak spot for you. This means that a normal fifteen-credit course load will turn into a 45-hour week. This is not unreasonable. It still leaves much time for activities, clubs, part-time work, personal time, social time, etc.
16. Date. It isn't done much anymore, but that doesn't mean that's ok. You will never have as many opportunities to be around people with similar interests and of a similar age again. Get to know many people. Date.
17. Don't drink alcohol until you're 21, and don't get drunk. This probably sounds radical to some people. It is not. Therapists' offices are full of people who are dealing with the effects of alcohol in their lives. Alcohol kills your brain cells, which you are in college to build. What you do under the influence of alcohol, or what you fail to do, may haunt you for a long time. Alcohol can multiply regrets.
18. To write a good paper, you must start working on it well before it is due. You must read it and re-read it and make changes.
19. Dictionaries can be a treasure. Learn to use them correctly. You probably think you know how to use a dictionary, but you probably don't.
20. Have opinions. Don't be afraid to think something and then to express it. Forget what your classmates think. When you read something, you should form an opinion of it. Come to class ready to talk about things you've read and to say what you think about it. Approaching things with indifference can become a really bad habit.
21. You want nothing to do with pornography. You have no idea how much it can destroy those who meddle with it.
22. Vote. Read up on the candidates and issues and vote. You may think you're too busy, but that is ridiculous. Our fourteen-hour-day ancestors were busy, not you. Your future self-- ten, twenty, thirty years down the road-- will be busy, but not your present self. Indifference is a disease, apathy a canker.
23. Television is really dumb. If you have not realized this, then you have missed out on something important during your four college years.
24. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert exhibit bias on their shows. If you have not realized this, then you have missed out on something important during your four college years.
25. Racism and sexism are all around. They are not struggles that have been conquered in the past.
26. Stop referring to your college as the Harvard of the (fill in the blank). Don't try to make your college sound better than it is. It is what it is. You don't need a fancy college bumper sticker on your car to have value. Your worth is great no matter where you go to college.
27. Dress. This may sound radical, but your clothing says a lot about your attitude. Pajamas, sweat pants, jogging shorts and the like say "I don't really care about this class and I lack sufficient respect for my professors, my fellow students, and the overall learning process."
28. Texting and Facebook have their place, but it is a small one.
29. Professors giving bad grades to students "they don't like" is largely a myth. Bad grades usually accompany bad work, not bad blood.
30. Nourish your spiritual life. Go to church, synagogue, etc. Read from the holy books. Figure out what you believe, and live it.
31. All those people who told you around high school graduation, "Don't ever change!" were wrong. You had better change, or else you will spend the rest of your life with the limited capacity of an 18-year-old. And you can't face 50-year-old problems, or even 30-year-old or 25-year-old problems with the limited capacity of an 18-year-old. You are in college to learn things you did not know and to grow and become better, and that is a good thing. 18 is fine when you're 18, but not when you're not.
32. Don't ask your professors questions that can easily be answered by looking at the syllabus. Questions about when office hours take place are among the most offensive in this category.
33. Your professors don't spend from 9-5 in their offices. They may be at the library reading or researching, at home on their computer typing, grading, and creating lesson plans, at conferences or symposia, at lectures around the university. They do many things outside of the classroom that are important factors in making the inside-the-classroom experience better.
34. Go to stuff. You think you don't have time, but that isn't true. Go to lectures, concerts, plays, exhibits, art museums, and so forth. Take an active role in your extracurricular cultural life.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Getting Jimmered
I am happy for the hoopla surrounding this year's winner of every college basketball award in the land. What I like about the BYU senior is that while the temptation for him proudly to inflate his sense of self must be great, he remains a humble and likeable kid.
I am surprised by the "Jimmer" jokes circulating on the internet however. They have a Chuck Norris-like feel to them; e.g. "Death just had a near-Jimmer experience"; "HD watches basketball in Jimmer"; "I just saved 15% on my car insurance by switching to Jimmer"; and "When the Jimmer goes swimming, he doesn't get wet-- the water gets Jimmered."
I wonder how he'll do in the NBA. Especially because I really only know the college game and rarely watch the NBA. My amateur guess is that he'll fare much like J.J. Redick: he'll be a solid three-point shooter who can score coming off the bench and quickly put up some points when needed, but that he won't be a superstar.
Note: the Jimmer and J.J. Redick are both white, but that doesn't mean you can't compare white players to black ones, and vice versa. It was interesting to see how many white players the Jimmer got compared to last season, and how much difficulty some people had comparing him to black players.
Some people doubt the Jimmer. They say his defense is bad. They say he doesn't have many assists. He averaged 3-4 assists a game, and often had more. I think that's a good assist record.
The best assist I got from him in class yesterday. I have a student from Glens Falls, Jimmer's hometown. We had just read a story in French in which an Eskimo laments that the old ways are disappearing and are being replaced with strange, new ways. The book says to ask students if they can think of anyone who similarly struggles with straddling the line between "the old ways" and modernity. My student from Glens Falls said Jimmer Fredette is like that. When he was in New Orleans with Team USA basketball people, everyone went out for a night on the town, to go drinking. Not the Jimmer. He stayed in the hotel and read the Bible. He is a Mormon.
That gave me the opportunity (on an assist from the Jimmer!) to say I am a Mormon, too, and that I didn't drink either. I always look for opportunities to let my students know I'm Mormon, so I was happy for this long-distance, 'cross two-time-zones assist from the Jimmer.
That day we all got Jimmered, in the best way.
I am surprised by the "Jimmer" jokes circulating on the internet however. They have a Chuck Norris-like feel to them; e.g. "Death just had a near-Jimmer experience"; "HD watches basketball in Jimmer"; "I just saved 15% on my car insurance by switching to Jimmer"; and "When the Jimmer goes swimming, he doesn't get wet-- the water gets Jimmered."
I wonder how he'll do in the NBA. Especially because I really only know the college game and rarely watch the NBA. My amateur guess is that he'll fare much like J.J. Redick: he'll be a solid three-point shooter who can score coming off the bench and quickly put up some points when needed, but that he won't be a superstar.
Note: the Jimmer and J.J. Redick are both white, but that doesn't mean you can't compare white players to black ones, and vice versa. It was interesting to see how many white players the Jimmer got compared to last season, and how much difficulty some people had comparing him to black players.
Some people doubt the Jimmer. They say his defense is bad. They say he doesn't have many assists. He averaged 3-4 assists a game, and often had more. I think that's a good assist record.
The best assist I got from him in class yesterday. I have a student from Glens Falls, Jimmer's hometown. We had just read a story in French in which an Eskimo laments that the old ways are disappearing and are being replaced with strange, new ways. The book says to ask students if they can think of anyone who similarly struggles with straddling the line between "the old ways" and modernity. My student from Glens Falls said Jimmer Fredette is like that. When he was in New Orleans with Team USA basketball people, everyone went out for a night on the town, to go drinking. Not the Jimmer. He stayed in the hotel and read the Bible. He is a Mormon.
That gave me the opportunity (on an assist from the Jimmer!) to say I am a Mormon, too, and that I didn't drink either. I always look for opportunities to let my students know I'm Mormon, so I was happy for this long-distance, 'cross two-time-zones assist from the Jimmer.
That day we all got Jimmered, in the best way.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Steven Slater Looks Like Paul Potts
I think Steven Slater (of JetBlue fame) looks like Paul Potts, of Britain's Got Talent fame. I think they're actually the same person.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Joseph Goebbels Looks Like Warren Jeffs
So I was watching a fascinating documentary on Netflix (I took the plunge) last night, called "The Goebbels Experiment," about the notorious Nazi propagandist and Hitler loyalist. It is almost entirely composed of quotes from Goebbels's diary, with images of the things he describes, all narrated by Kenneth Branagh. I have not the talent of an A.O. Scott or a James Lambert to provide an appropriate review of the film, but I will say that it was interesting to watch and that I recommend it, difficult material though it broaches.
Incidentally, I am still upset that Ken and Em divorced back in the mid-nineties; it cast a bitter cloud over part of my first-year college experience. KenandEm were the intellectual precursors of Brangelina; there was great hope for what their future artistic collaborations (and offspring) would accomplish. But alas, it was not to be. In spite of my disappointment, however, I still said "Kenneth Branagh" when we were asked in the MTC about who we would like to meet for dinner, if we could meet anyone in the world. As I listened to the other missionaries describe, in turn, whom they would like to meet, I soon realized that I was playing the game wrong; I was supposed to say Captain Moroni or Alma and Amulek or something, and I was suddenly filled with chagrin at not being more spiritually minded. I think I have repented since, but Branagh still makes the top ten.
Anyway, I realized last night that Joseph Goebbels looks like Warren Jeffs:
Right?
Incidentally, I am still upset that Ken and Em divorced back in the mid-nineties; it cast a bitter cloud over part of my first-year college experience. KenandEm were the intellectual precursors of Brangelina; there was great hope for what their future artistic collaborations (and offspring) would accomplish. But alas, it was not to be. In spite of my disappointment, however, I still said "Kenneth Branagh" when we were asked in the MTC about who we would like to meet for dinner, if we could meet anyone in the world. As I listened to the other missionaries describe, in turn, whom they would like to meet, I soon realized that I was playing the game wrong; I was supposed to say Captain Moroni or Alma and Amulek or something, and I was suddenly filled with chagrin at not being more spiritually minded. I think I have repented since, but Branagh still makes the top ten.
Anyway, I realized last night that Joseph Goebbels looks like Warren Jeffs:
Right?
Friday, July 23, 2010
Seriously?
President Obama is quoted in the New York Times today as saying that the first couple is ''not that far removed from what most Americans are going through'' in terms of being affected by the economic crisis.
Seriously?
He makes roughly half a million dollars a year, not to mention free rent, gym membership, meals, etc. Now, he's the president, so I don't have a problem with him getting all that. But we also know that he and the first lady pulled over a million dollars last year, according to their publically available tax records. So that officially makes them millionaires.
Millionaires are pretty far removed from what most Americans are going through.
Cornel West, the well-known Princeton professor, public intellectual, and erstwhile rap artist, says in the film "Examined Life" (I recommend it; saw it the other day) that to read philosophy is to come alive, that thinking deeply about things helps to make us more alive. Agreed. But then he does the unthinkable in the film: he points to a random assortment of pedestrians on a New York street and proclaims that they are not really living, that they are simply going through the motions.
Seriously?
Does he know those people personally?
What about people who don't have access to philosophy, like the poor of the world? Isn't it elitist to say that "really living" requires the luxuries of time and means available to the likes of an Ivy League academic?
U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee said recently that it was great how the two countries of North and South Vietnam were getting along so splendidly, even though we may not always like what North Vietnam is doing (see video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK3rTUgoQD4)
Seriously?
Geography is a neglected study in this country. If I were a millionaire president or a public intellectual cum-professor-rapper seeking to help people live deeply and suck out all the marrow of life, I would require all elementary school students to play Risk regularly, which is where I got my first bearings about world geography.
Seriously.
Seriously?
He makes roughly half a million dollars a year, not to mention free rent, gym membership, meals, etc. Now, he's the president, so I don't have a problem with him getting all that. But we also know that he and the first lady pulled over a million dollars last year, according to their publically available tax records. So that officially makes them millionaires.
Millionaires are pretty far removed from what most Americans are going through.
Cornel West, the well-known Princeton professor, public intellectual, and erstwhile rap artist, says in the film "Examined Life" (I recommend it; saw it the other day) that to read philosophy is to come alive, that thinking deeply about things helps to make us more alive. Agreed. But then he does the unthinkable in the film: he points to a random assortment of pedestrians on a New York street and proclaims that they are not really living, that they are simply going through the motions.
Seriously?
Does he know those people personally?
What about people who don't have access to philosophy, like the poor of the world? Isn't it elitist to say that "really living" requires the luxuries of time and means available to the likes of an Ivy League academic?
U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee said recently that it was great how the two countries of North and South Vietnam were getting along so splendidly, even though we may not always like what North Vietnam is doing (see video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK3rTUgoQD4)
Seriously?
Geography is a neglected study in this country. If I were a millionaire president or a public intellectual cum-professor-rapper seeking to help people live deeply and suck out all the marrow of life, I would require all elementary school students to play Risk regularly, which is where I got my first bearings about world geography.
Seriously.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Political Dynamite
Without question the most amusing political story to emerge in the last year or so is the election of Alvin Greene as the Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina's primary last Tuesday.
Mr. Greene is a 32-year-old, unemployed, recently and involuntarily discharged military veteran who lives with his 80-some-odd-year-old father. He has neither campaign website nor yard sign nor cell phone nor Twitter account, and he didn't hold any rallies, but he IS currently out on bail for a felony charge involving pornography and stalking a "co-ed" (that's Old People talk for female undergraduate)and following her all the way into her dorm.
He also clearly does not have all of his mental faculties quite in order, as is made clear in this interview, very similar to others given on MSNBC and Fox News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYtnrvn9xd4
Pundits and Democratic heavy hitters alike have been scrambling to find an explanation for this strangest of strange occurrences. One plausible theory to emerge is that he is a Republican plant, someone who the Republicans got to run so that they could vote for him (South Carolina has open primaries; you don't need to be registered with a certain party to participate in that certain party's primaries) and then the Republican challenger would be a shoe-in. This would be fitting with the history of dirty politics in South Carolina, and (after all) a similar feat was accomplished by the Republicans in 1990. Also, this would explain where on earth Mr. Greene got the $10,400 needed to run in the Democratic primary. He says the money is his own, but one wonders where an unemployed 32-year-old can get that kind of money from. (Heck, I'm an employed 32-year-old and I don't have that kind of money sitting around).
One problem with this theory is that the Republican challenger, Sen. Jim DeMint, is popular and well-liked and was seen as being in no danger at all of losing his seat, so one wonders why Republicans would resort to these shenanigans if their man could easily get elected without them.
Another theory, mentioned in the New York Times, is that Alvin Greene is clearly the name of an African-American, and that voters in South Carolina (many of whom, especially in the Democratic primary, are African-American) therefore voted for him, thus encouraging the rise of the first African-American senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction. The problem I have with this theory is that it could be seen to imply that black people are stupid.
Yet another theory holds that Alvin Greene's name simply appeared first on the ballot, above the name of his much better known and better financed opponent, and that Democrats simply voted for the first name they saw. Apparently, people do this, especially very partisan voters.
Whatever happened exactly (and I'm sure we'll find out soon), what's clear is that we have witnessed a fundamental breakdown in the democratic process in this country. Whether Mr. Greene is where he is because of manipulative and revolting Republican shenanigans or because Democrats voted for someone without knowing who he really is, what is clear is that the combination of ignorance and apathy is absolute poison to the democratic process. This is exactly what happens when citizens cease to be engaged in their own civic welfare. The importance of active and informed voting has never been clearer.
So while I say that this whole episode has been amusing, the truth is, it is more alarming than anything. Almost equally alarming has been the coverage of this story in the biased networks. Fox News actually spun this story as anti-incumbent fever and as an example of ruthless, kingmaking top Democrats trying to circumvent the voice of the people by insisting on crowning their own candidates (the party's top dogs have called for Mr. Greene to step aside in favor of the better-known Democratic challenger). MSNBC tried to spin this as clearly another manifestation of Republican ruthlessness in South Carolina. Again, active and informed citizenship is necessary in order to see through the filters that these networks provide.
Mr. Greene is a 32-year-old, unemployed, recently and involuntarily discharged military veteran who lives with his 80-some-odd-year-old father. He has neither campaign website nor yard sign nor cell phone nor Twitter account, and he didn't hold any rallies, but he IS currently out on bail for a felony charge involving pornography and stalking a "co-ed" (that's Old People talk for female undergraduate)and following her all the way into her dorm.
He also clearly does not have all of his mental faculties quite in order, as is made clear in this interview, very similar to others given on MSNBC and Fox News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYtnrvn9xd4
Pundits and Democratic heavy hitters alike have been scrambling to find an explanation for this strangest of strange occurrences. One plausible theory to emerge is that he is a Republican plant, someone who the Republicans got to run so that they could vote for him (South Carolina has open primaries; you don't need to be registered with a certain party to participate in that certain party's primaries) and then the Republican challenger would be a shoe-in. This would be fitting with the history of dirty politics in South Carolina, and (after all) a similar feat was accomplished by the Republicans in 1990. Also, this would explain where on earth Mr. Greene got the $10,400 needed to run in the Democratic primary. He says the money is his own, but one wonders where an unemployed 32-year-old can get that kind of money from. (Heck, I'm an employed 32-year-old and I don't have that kind of money sitting around).
One problem with this theory is that the Republican challenger, Sen. Jim DeMint, is popular and well-liked and was seen as being in no danger at all of losing his seat, so one wonders why Republicans would resort to these shenanigans if their man could easily get elected without them.
Another theory, mentioned in the New York Times, is that Alvin Greene is clearly the name of an African-American, and that voters in South Carolina (many of whom, especially in the Democratic primary, are African-American) therefore voted for him, thus encouraging the rise of the first African-American senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction. The problem I have with this theory is that it could be seen to imply that black people are stupid.
Yet another theory holds that Alvin Greene's name simply appeared first on the ballot, above the name of his much better known and better financed opponent, and that Democrats simply voted for the first name they saw. Apparently, people do this, especially very partisan voters.
Whatever happened exactly (and I'm sure we'll find out soon), what's clear is that we have witnessed a fundamental breakdown in the democratic process in this country. Whether Mr. Greene is where he is because of manipulative and revolting Republican shenanigans or because Democrats voted for someone without knowing who he really is, what is clear is that the combination of ignorance and apathy is absolute poison to the democratic process. This is exactly what happens when citizens cease to be engaged in their own civic welfare. The importance of active and informed voting has never been clearer.
So while I say that this whole episode has been amusing, the truth is, it is more alarming than anything. Almost equally alarming has been the coverage of this story in the biased networks. Fox News actually spun this story as anti-incumbent fever and as an example of ruthless, kingmaking top Democrats trying to circumvent the voice of the people by insisting on crowning their own candidates (the party's top dogs have called for Mr. Greene to step aside in favor of the better-known Democratic challenger). MSNBC tried to spin this as clearly another manifestation of Republican ruthlessness in South Carolina. Again, active and informed citizenship is necessary in order to see through the filters that these networks provide.
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