One of the earliest memories I can recall fromthe haze of frosh week was attending the foot-ball game. I have never been an avid fan of the sport and it had little impact beyond being yet another chance to meet new students. The Waterloo Warriors were doing poorly, but ourspirit remained strong with the rousing chantof “It’s alright, it’s okay, you’re going to work for us some day!” I, like many there, foundthis amusing.
I have come to reect on this sentiment at
the end of my undergraduate career. Only now
can I appreciate the signicance that expectation
had on the years to follow. I, like many others,
viewed the university experience that lay ahead
not as an education or a chance to improvemyself, but as the intervening years separating me from a respected career.I can’t help but feel precocious discussing asubject like this, but I’m certain that it at leastdeserves some discussion. I am disappointed with my degree. This is not because it wasn’t
what I have expected. On the contrary, it wasprecisely what I had expected. Expectations,
however, can and do change over time.
My expectations were to learn about phys
-ics from capable instructors. How glorious Ithought it would be to learn about the way things really work on the biggest, smallest,longest and shortest scales. The mystique of physics really lies in the fact that it is a subjectof superlatives.In due course, I gained an understanding of the world that was deemed by my professors
sufcient enough to allow me to move onto
subsequent levels of study. As Vonnegut would say, “so it goes.” As theterms came and went, I learned new things. Work terms, in particular, proved to be espe-cially fertile ground for education. Discussing this phenomenon with my peers, work termsare often described as where they learned themost. You learn a great deal because that’s thenature of most jobs — you have to learn how to do the work.I worry that the future will prove this to be
the case less often. Every student is given the
mantra, “If you don’t specialize you won’t geta job.” Specialization and employability havebecome virtually synonymous.Now my feelings have changed. I think more students should enter university with
the expectation of learning one thing more
than anything else — how to learn. As the
saying goes, give a man a sh and he’ll eat fora day. Teach a man how to sh and he’ll eat
for a lifetime. I would add one more step inthis. Teach a man how to learn on his own,and he might get to eat something other than
sh every day.
It is my understanding that colleges are
meant to provide specic training. With the
proliferation of the number of programs of-fered, universities are becoming more like jobtraining than the more traditional degree. I amthus emerging from university still feeling likea student. This doesn’t surprise me when I seehow much my education was geared towards
lling a niche, rather than being trained to nd
my own. This slow transition has not come to itsnatural conclusion of industry getting studentsto pay for their own job training, but the trendsare leading us in that direction. If imposedgradually enough, it will simply become a tru-ism. You won’t get a job unless you specialize. A general degree is meaningless. A well-roundededucation is obsolete, paid lip service by requir-ing a single english course for math students, ora token science course for people in arts.
Perhaps this is premature. With the exception
of a few programs added each year, many pro-grams do offer the chance for personal growthunhindered by the rigors of a specialization.For students interested in pursuing graduate work, specialization is a necessity — but those who follow this path represent a minority of undergraduate students.I still contend that the small number of electives available as a result of the quest forspecialization in many programs does moreharm than good. This is especially detrimental when these limitations are imposed as early
as rst year. A restructuring of the system is
not required — only the need to be consciousof what your education will ultimately meanto you.
— Brendan Pintobpinto@uwaterloo.ca
Friday, June 1, 2007
— Vol. 30, No. 3
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Teach a man how to learn on his own, and he might getto eat something other than fish every day.
There’s nothing like an angry protest to makeyou re-evaluate your values.I would like to think I am a tolerant, liber-ated person. I would also like to think that Inever judge anyone on his or her appearance,
religious afliation, or cultural and ethnic back
-
ground. But following the on-campus events
of Monday, May 28, I really let myself down.I did something so dangerous, so uncalled for,that it embarrassed me to no end.I found myself making assumptions.Upon learning that a protest rally had beenplanned during the Muslim-Mennonite forum
at Conrad Grebel College, I knew immediately that the story would be substantial. But, I was
asked, who will be protesting?
I dunno…probably an ultra-conservative right-wing fundamentalist group.
Yup, book by its cover.I realized what I’d said and tried to recover.Luckily, the person with whom I was speaking didn’t think anything of it — maybe she made
the same assumption. But the damage in my own
mind had been done. Muslims talking to Men-nonites about peace, and someone’s protesting?It
has
to be the right-wing WASPs, doesn’t it? After learning that the protestors were Ira-nian immigrants, I realized that assumptions aredangerous things to make. I was just as wrong to assume the dominant demographic of theprotestors as I would have been to assume thatthe Iranian scholars invited to speak here had
planned on launching a holy war on their ight
over the Atlantic.Luckily, my assumptions stopped there. Itappeared, however, that the security forces atthe event kept on assuming.UW police, regional cops and even a riotteam as part of a contingent of boys in bluefrom the Metro Toronto Police were all calledto campus to quell a potential uprising. Ambu-
lances stood by, ofcers were stationed on the
roof, and smoke bombs were readied. There were about 15 or 20 protesters, and their biggest weapons were their voices.
Sure, the police ofcers and security co
-ordinators will pin their presence on public
security. But would there have been such a
fuss from the Five-O if the protestors weren’t
Middle Eastern? Maybe. Or maybe it was more
assumptions. The noisy protesters halted the publicforum; they had accomplished what they’d wanted, and they did it without violence. Andtheir cause was a valid one, right? I mean,they
did
speak of ghting for human rightsand eeing their home nation under physical
oppression. So the protest was a success, orso one would assume — there’s that danger-ous word again.
But what about the fact that they stied
open peace dialogues with vigilant methods? What about the irony of human rights advo-cates stamping out free speech? Their causeis assumed to be a good one, and so are theirmethods. You know what they say when youassume, right?I guess we all make assumptions. And I guess we should all know how dangerous they are.
But I’m assuming you already knew that.
editor@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
An ass out of you and me
COMMUNITY EDITORIAL
...And all I got was this lousy education
Opinion
Imprint, Friday, June 1, 2007opinion@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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