Agreed! Students need to be socially, globally, and politically aware. They should also be willing to collaborate with others and be able to integrate the diverse viewpoints brought by others with their own. And yes, teachers should not act as the 'dispensers of knowledge' but they should enter a classroom with an inquisitive mind to learn something in the process of teaching.

Quick sand is visually more to the point than the treading water and putting out fires I envision myself doing in grad school. It would seem that we are the students that are covering new ground upon which to stand firm and it will be interesting to see just what our students think after they survive our teaching!

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Oh, I totally agree with you, Amy. We need to move beyond the narrow conceptions of intelligence, learning, education, and academic success. We need to acknowledge that one needs to have EQ as well as IQ in order to live a meaningful life. We need to look as academic success in terms of how well the graduates are doing in life instead of measuring how much money they are making or what grade they are getting in classes. We need to see if student and graduates have the ability and the will to take actions for the good of all.

I know your fear and I once had the same fear too. Until I opened up to a Professor in my department that once worked in an engineering company before becoming an academic and what she told me was that, in the Engineering profession, every entry-level engineer has this same fear and that no one is going to expect you to know how the company works in details. General knowledge, gained from an undergraduate degree, is all that’s needed. They will work you through their standards when you become an employee. So my suggestion would be to talk to people already working in your field and ask them how they prepared themselves for the work environment.

Great post. But we have to also ask the question of what the student hopes to gain from a school. Some just want to explore the theoretical limits of some field regardless of financial gain while others see it as a necessary step to making a lot of money. But schools are not designed to be fluid and meet everyone’s needs hence the problem of most schools being setup to cater to a few ideal students while the rest drone along.

So true! I joined college because I needed a degree to make money. This idea of course changed over time as I started to understand the impact I can make on society. I feel that a key idea is for students to realize that they can make a difference in the way we live and they can take part in the efforts to improve our quality of life. School is just a place where one receive training of thought to innovate ideas that make their small community or society as a whole a better place.

Great post. I understand more the need for Liberal arts and humanities major now more than ever. As part of the Preparing Future Professoriate class, we did one session where we learnt theatre techniques to improve communication skills. I found the class very rewarding as it teaches us to learn, listen, and focus on the people around us. As an engineer, I feel like each engineering student should take this class. It really helps you understand society and the world we live in outside our small engineering bubble.

I think it’s a great initiative. While I understand the critics of such a move and their argument (that low income students need more help), I also think that the prison system will be better at reforming inmates if the inmates have an access to quality education. The overarching question still will be – ‘Should inmates be preferred over low income students?’ but dignity of a person, incarcerated or not should not factor into an argument for or against this move.

I think it’s a great initiative. While I understand the critics of such a move and their argument (that low income students need more help), I also think that the prison system will be better at reforming inmates if the inmates have an access to quality education. The overarching question still will be – ‘Should inmates be preferred over low income students?’ but dignity of a person, incarcerated or not should not factor into an argument for or against this move.

I totally agree with you! I also feel that I was not challenged enough to thinking outside the box during my undergraduate education. I feel like we need to link our undergraduate curriculum especially towards these new ideas of innovative thinking where we produce new generations of critical thinkers rather student taught to conform to the norm and be passive about the ideas presented before.

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