<p>I've recently completed my first year of college at Swarthmore, and it made me think about what my goals are in college. I'm surprised that such a thread on how to make the most of college isn't here on the College Life forum. I could be wrong, though.</p>
<p>I'm very fortunate to have gotten accepted to Swarthmore and to have the opportunity to go to school here. When people ask me how Swarthmore is, I usually say, "Great!" I was a high achiever in high school, and I think I had a reputation of being the one who loved to learn but was also kind of a chill guy who knew how to have fun in his own nerdy, dorky way. I was on the chess team, math team, and Latin "quiz bowl" team, and I really enjoyed all of the competitions I went to.</p>
<p>Actually, though, it's hard to say that I loved my first year. It seems like all my friends in college are loving college, and it's supposed to be the best four years of your life. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed freshman year. I learned a lot, and I think I improved a lot on my writing ability and my ability to make an argument and communicate it. I learned a lot of math and Chinese, and I also made some very good friends. These are all good things, but for some reason I don't feel completely satisfied. I'm still trying to find out why.</p>
<p>We get a lot of work at Swarthmore, and that was really one reason I came here. I wanted to work very hard and get the grade I deserved. But I've found that having too much work is a bad thing. I've often found myself finishing classes, going to the library to work, having dinner, often by myself because I haven't scheduled a time for dinner, and then going back to finish up my work. And the work isn't easy, especially when it's scholarly text. I think one of the things that I never really learned in high school was how to read a textbook. I've used methods like SQ3R and other reading techniques, but I've found some sentences and sometimes whole pages that I can't comprehend even if I work hard, even when I'm working in quiet. I used to join some extracurricular activities, but I got bored of them, and I became worried that I wouldn't have enough time to complete all my work. But now I think that just working is boring and I get lonely. Has anyone had this experience?</p>
<p>I am thinking that forming a study group might be helpful, and joining some club. Usually in my free time I do solitary things, like going for a walk or reading. I also work 8 hours a week for work-study.</p>
<p>I am also starting to think that the courses that I will be taking for the next three years are just courses. In other words, they have no real relation to each other. For example, I took a course in biology, but it was followed by nothing. Here's what I took in first semester:</p>
<p>Linear Algebra
Chinese
Biology
Modern Germany</p>
<p>and here's what I took second semester:</p>
<p>Multivariable Calculus
Chinese
English
Modern China</p>
<p>I just don't get a sense that what I'm learning is coherent. I don't really know why I don't feel as satisfied, because they were mostly good classes taught by good professors. All in all, the characteristics of a good academic experience. But none of them really changed my perception of the world or changed any part of me, I don't think. I could be wrong. It seems like I'm learning a lot of information, but I'm not getting any real "Aha" moment. I don't get the sense that I've changed at all. I don't feel educated.</p>
<p>Which brings me to another thing I've reflected on. Many people go to college to get an education. Many people apply to schools like Swarthmore in order to "get a liberal arts education." But I'm starting to think that Swarthmore does not offer an education. Instead, Swarthmore, and college in general, offers schooling. Professors don't educate you; they teach you. What does it mean to be educated? </p>
<p>I was reading a book, Teacher in America, by Jacques Barzun, and here's what he means by educated:</p>
<p>"When a man has been singled out by the Fates for education, what happens is that he first disgorges all the facts he has learned. He forgets on a really magnanimous scale. It is a spring cleaning in which he sorts out his true intellectual interests from the temporary or imitative."</p>
<p>He then goes on to say,</p>
<p>"The whole reorganizing of a fine and well-stocked mind may seem a haphazard, uncertain process...it is an instance of thinking in the widest meaning of the term; which means it is the working of a strong wish, early implanted--a passion-- and out of it comes a characteristic work o art--a Person."</p>
<p>He says that education is a result of passion:</p>
<p>"To become educated is above all things the result of wishful thinking; but the wish must be for the true state, not for its trappings. Wish is in fact too weak a word, so I have called it passion..... every educated man shares their experience--the same toiling over oneself and over subject matter, the same sacrifice of usual pleasures, the same sense of never being satisfied, of never having done, in a span which dwindles as its purpose becomes clearer...it is the educated--and I do not mean the learned--who save novelty from neglect and propagate it, out of live and admiration and pride."</p>
<p>Education, then, is something that is done through the self. It cannot be given. Which makes me wonder whether I will achieve what I have wanted to achieve in college.</p>
<p>When I started college, I wanted to learn so many things. I wanted to know about chemistry, physics, biology, political science, economics, a bit of sociology, math, Chinese, the great works of literature. And I wanted to know a lot about history. I've realized that in the short four years, I cannot possible learn all these things as in depth as I wanted to. I guess that I have to pick. Most importantly what I want to get from college are the essential skills of reading, writing, counting, and speaking.</p>
<p>But I wanted to develop a sense of intellect. You know, we always speak of Swarthmore and the University of Chicago as "super-intellectual colleges." We also speak of Reed in this way. But what does it mean to be intellectual? I honestly don't think I've had many really intellectual conversations since coming to Swarthmore. That might be excused, though. It's hard to talk about Mill if you know so little about him. Now that I think about it, I myself probably cannot have many genuinely intellectual conversations, but that is something I wanted and still want to work on.</p>
<p>In short, it's hard to say that I had a bad freshman year. I learned a lot, I did get a challenging work load, and I did get the personal attention from professors that the small colleges promise. And I did feel a sense of community. All the good stuff. But I felt that I just took courses in freshman year. I kind of don't feel a great sense of accomplishment. I also feel that I haven't made as much out of college as I could have. Does anyone feel this way or have suggestions?</p>