Searching for Value

Classrooms are rife with history, ideas, experiments, knowledge, and, yes, fun. We learn something new literally everyday when in school – that’s kind of the point. With the right attitude, education encourages us to become smarter and bolder, to grow empathetic and compassionate, to broaden our horizons, and to dig deeper. We can probe the minds of those wiser than us and build lasting relationships with mentors, role models, and peers. And while technology is pushing the boundaries of education further and further, the atmosphere of a classroom is forever unmatchable. 

Yet there’s a flip side to this coin. With an indifferent attitude, the classroom can be nothing less than a waste of time and an early morning disturbance. Particularly with classes irrelevant to our interests, we often take an apathetic stance – pass the tests, pass the class, and be done with it. This attitude wastes money, time, and potential - all which carry immense personal value. 

Think to the last time you did something you didn’t want to. Whatever it was, you probably did it anyways – that’s just a part of life. Maybe it was cleaning up the house after a night of partying, or studying for the SAT, GRE, or whatever ABC you needed to get into your dream school. Perhaps that math class wasn’t pertinent to your aspirations of becoming a lawyer, but it was still necessary to graduate – some things aren’t going to change. 

What can be changed, however, are the attitudes and perceptions toward those undesirable situations. You might take that class only because you have to, but you may as well gain something valuable from it. 

Changing perceptions

Choosing the right course load isn’t easy, especially for undergraduates. Statistics show that around 75% of students change their major throughout their college career, while most students at public universities are taking longer than four years to graduate. As tuition costs continue to rise, this deepens the onus of taking unnecessary classes, such as general education courses, while simultaneously altering attitudes and perceptions toward them. If a class is irrelevant, then why take it? If it simply must be taken, then why pay attention?

As humans we’re gifted with the power of choice, and how we choose to perceive our circumstances dictates the value we gain. We can choose to search for value where we’d least expect it, using our educational opportunities to explore and push the boundaries outside of our current interests. We can choose to keep an open mind and broaden our perspectives, as college is intended to do, and take advantage of the unique scholarly environment – never again will we live through such an experience.

Yet this is much easier said than done. In a world where our attention is constantly demanded, and 10-second portions of satisfaction are so easily accessible, it can be difficult to find value in those undesirable situations.   

Easily entertained, effortlessly distracted

Technology has pushed us to crave constant stimulation; we yearn to be entertained yet we’re easily distracted. A teacher that fails to captivate a class loses its attention to Instagram or Facebook, to Snapchat or Bejeweled.

It’s tempting to leave reality and lose one's way in the digital city. It's even more tempting when we lack sustainable, real world stimulation.

Like most students, I've experienced this numerous times before. As an avid enthusiast of philosophy, literature, sociology, and pretty much every other liberal arts subject around, I tend to sift through a frenzy of random Wikipedia tabs during classes involving angles, statistics, numbers (some not even real), and formulas. I found those concepts to be boring – I found those concepts to be useless. 

Yet there’s something to be said about general education classes. These courses are intended to do exactly what they suggest – provide a well-rounded foundation and an introduction to a variety of broad, general subjects. You’re not expected to excel in each subject, or remember everything from the course – you’re simply pushed to be conversant enough to understand the value in a real world context. And who knows - the class may be more interesting than expected. 

Sure, maybe you don’t need to prove those two triangles are congruent to be a successful lawyer. And you probably don’t need to understand the nuances of microeconomic supply and demand to successfully run a business. But this doesn’t render your geometry and economics classes useless. Maybe learning proofs can improve your ability to systematically check your logic in providing irrefutable evidence. And understanding how humans interact on a day-to-day basis may strengthen your understanding of how employees act and react in a business setting. The opportunities are endless. 

Wherever you go, there you are

Whatever it is, everything in life carries some sort of meaning. What we do, who we meet, where we go – it all has an impact on our perception of the world around us. Positive experiences certainly generate positive value – why else would we do them? Yet when it’s reversed, when it’s something that we don’t necessarily want to do, we frequently fail to find value. More often that not, we fail to even look.

These thoughts aren’t meant to be didactic – they’re meant to be reinforcing. It’s easy to lose oneself in a world of constant stimulation and positive feedback. With the hustle and bustle of everyday life, wasting time can be a serious drawback. But there are things in this life we can’t control, and it’s something that must be accepted. Whether it’s taking a boring class or waking up early, there’s always something positive to be attained. There’s no point in avoiding the unpleasant realities of the present - they're simply unavoidable. Wherever you go, there you are. 

this article was originally posted on 7/6

by Lawrence Doppelt

Images via Unsplash

Why Every Millennial Should be Reading David Foster Wallace

Readership for literature is dying. Statistics back the argument, and I’m not here to argue against it. What I think could possibly be the problem is that young people are failing to find writers that speak to them. But I’ve been a fan of one such writer that's spoken to me deeply and could possibly speak to many other millennials as well. The writer I’m talking about is the late David Foster Wallace.

In the history of Literature, it's easy to pinpoint writers that reflect a certain era. Examples of this are Mark Twain during the late 1800’s, F. Scott Fitzgerald during the Jazz Age, Jack Kerouac during the Beat Generation, and Thomas Pynchon during the counterculture of the late 1960’s and early 70’s. It could be possible that the reason it's hard for all of us to agree on one writer for our time is that there are actually a higher number of talented writers working the past few decades than ever before. Another reason is that our culture has become more fractured with the dawn of the internet, so it’s difficult for a writer to connect with a wide spanned readership. That could very well be true, but I still feel that there should be a writer that Millennials can unite under—someone we can look to for wisdom.

First off, the themes Wallace explores are subjects that Millennials find important, such as entertainment, drugs and addiction, the environment, solipsism, politics and government, loneliness and depression in everyday American life, and relationships. I’m sure many of you will find his work to be difficult, and let me assure you, it’s supposed to be. He believed modern entertainment was becoming too easily digestible, and that literature should be more demanding of it’s readers, as if it is exercising a part of our brains that other forms of modern entertainment are not engaging.

Here are some of his works that Millennials may find relevant to their lives right now:

Infinite Jest: This is considered his magnum opus. Cited by Time Magazine as one of the best english language novels since 1923. Millennials will find this novel relevant to them because it takes place in a world where entertainment and drugs have become so good, that people can’t escape them. The novel is long and tough to read, but the reward for getting through it could be unlike any other reading experience you’ve ever had.

Consider the Lobster: A book of essays that touch on many subjects such as the porn industry, September 11th, talk radio, and Fydor Dostoevsky. The two essays that Millennial’s may find most interesting at this time are the title essay and “Up, Simba” about John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “Consider the Lobster” is about his visit to a Maine lobster festival and many will think the essay is solely about animal rights, but I find it to be about how much of our own thinking is dominated by what’s being marketed to us.

And for you recent graduates, Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College is one of the best: 

by Darin Milanesio

Image via Animal New York