Owning Your Education
One of the major concepts I wish I understood when I was younger is that education is something you take, not something that is given. You have to own it.
We have had some former students approach us as they are preparing to enter college. They have many questions about what classes they should take and what majors they should be working toward. They also have questions about what schools they should go to and if it is better to go far away for college or stay in the area.
The thing we try to tell all of them is that they own their education and it is theirs for the taking. The odds are that it doesn’t matter where they go, they will have to step up and take ownership of what they are trying to learn.
A particular story sticks out to me where one of our former students came to us during the second semester of his freshman year and told us that he just didn’t feel like he was getting much out of college. He said that the classes were boring, the other students were very immature, and he didn’t feel like college was benefitting him.
This student was a motivated individual. Hitting the slog during the freshman year of college that consists of core classes, orientation, general on ramping into the collegiate realm, was of little to no interest to him. He is a smart and hard working kid. No one wants to go through slow, boring, and unnecessary processes.
He got stuck in this painfully slow process that college offers where they try to help you find yourself and the subjects you like. That may be a prime opportunity for other students, but this student needed the next step. He was already past all of that.
He knew he liked business and entrepreneurship and was ready to experience both at a higher level than he did in high school. I asked him if he had gone and talked with an academic advisor and told them that he was hating this rut. I also asked him if he had looked into other programs and offerings that the school had that more adequately suited his interests.
He hadn’t don either.
He hadn’t stepped up and owned his education.
Most individuals are trained very poorly by school. They are told that they will sit in a chair, do what their told, learn what their taught, and take breaks when the learning is over (I know it’s cliché, but it sounds a lot like prison right).
By the time an individual gets to college, they don’t always have the ability or the knowledge of how to ask constructive questions of the system they are in because they are told that the system is the best way that learning happens.
In the aforementioned student’s case, he has the right to demand more from his education. He is paying to be there in some way shape or form, and if he feels that what he is getting in return isn’t adequate for the amount of time and money he is spending, he has a right to speak up and challenge the path that the institution has laid out for him.
He can ask what other programs are available from administrators, he can ask for more challenging work from his teachers, he can ask which classes he should take in order to be around more mature individuals who are serious about their education. Most colleges and universities have answers to these programs and administrators and educators who would love to have these kinds of conversations with students, but most of them are underutilized.
I think the flip side of this is that you have to assume that most students know that learning and education are supposed to be challenging. If you are taking your education, you aren’t asking for all A’s or an easier path, you are asking for more challenges or a method of learning that better suits the way you process information. Sometimes students need to be reminded of this.
The number one piece of advice for any student getting ready to enter college is that your education is yours to take. If you treat it as a passive source of knowledge and information, you are going to lose. You have to own it. Demand the experiences that you want from your education.
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Alex Sejdinaj is a cofounder of South Bend Code School, GiveGrove, and Code Works. He loves building cool stuff that helps people.
