Pan left, a figure sitting at a computer in a university library. A wide-eyed freshman looks at the course directory on the screen before him, mouth drooling with the possibilities that lay in the future. Yeah, he’s bio or human development, or whatever, but the major only takes up a little more than half the classes he needs to graduate. His gaze darts across the page, reading course descriptions that get more interesting with each flick of the scroll wheel. “Buried Cities and Lost Tribes,” “Black Feminist Thought,” “Demons, Fools and Madmen,” “Buddhist Metaphysics.” Authors he never thought he’d read are listed in the required reading; topics he didn’t even know existed are central themes in the syllabi. The words jump off the screen and dance with this 18-year-old boy, as he gets lost in the opportunity to become cultured, well-rounded. To learn for the sake of learning.
Flash forward four years. This same boy is sitting at his desk in his Downtown apartment, opening a letter. His room is full of artifacts of who he is: treasures of the places he’s been, the people he’s loved and the things he’s learned. His bookshelf holds the well-liked required readings from his career as a liberal arts student: sci-fi books from “Tales of the Future,” graphic novels from “Alternative Fictions,” philosophy books ranging from Kant to Aquinas to Shantideva. His letter, just read, falls from his hands onto the table. It’s an acceptance letter to nursing school, his top choice. His blood pumps with joy and excitement, adrenaline rushes through his veins, preparing him for the evolutionarily defunct instinct of fight-or-flight. He spins in his chair, relief clear on his face that he sees once, twice, three times in the mirror on his wall. He slows his spinning, coming to a final stop facing his bookcase. The excitement dissipates as a wave of nostalgia comes crashing over him.
This is the prospect that many of us students face as we begin to face the prospects of real life. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing after graduation: going to grad school, getting a job or going in for another degree. Senior year is the end of learning for the sake of learning. Many of us come from restricted high school regiments, where the electives were limited to “Forensics.” There wasn’t much opportunity to broaden your horizons, so you took full advantage of it during your four years here (or at least you plan to). And now the fun of horizon-broadening is coming to an end. Maybe you’ll read a couple interesting books, or listen to some interesting NPR stories once you’re gone, but nothing comes close to the structure of a college class in making you learn. I would have never read “Abhidharma-kosa” by Vasubandhu outside of class (yeah, what?). And I’m going to nursing school, so I probably won’t ever do something like that again.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the medical field, just as I’m sure you love business or engineering or accounting. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life reading “Abhidharma-kosa.” But learning for the sake of learning was my favorite part of college, and perhaps the most difficult to replicate once I leave. If you want me I’ll be making my own reading lists and finding strangers on the Internet to force my opinions on. Goodbye, cruel liberal arts school.