When I entered college, I had no idea whether my high school classes had prepared me for the rigors of college. My parents assured me that each academic level prepared students for the next level, and I took their word for it.
But come midterms the first semester, I was unprepared for the quantity of reading and thinking expected of me. The first six weeks had seemed easy: essays to write in English, and short reading assignments, but no big papers due until the end of the semester, and the books due for midterms — well, there was always tomorrow.
Tomorrow came, and my performance on a couple of midterms was not what I had hoped. I was guilty of poor time management, a first-year affliction as inevitable as the “freshman 15” pounds of weight gain.
Surveys of college professors have confirmed what I learned inductively during my college days: Time management skills are valued highly. Not surprisingly, workplace skills are precisely the ones needed for successful completion of four years of higher education: the ability to think critically, to work collaboratively, to solve problems creatively, and to meet deadlines.
Colleges and universities go a step further in valuing the ability of students to place their learning in a larger context and see their formal education as only one step in the learning process. Nearly all institutions list “Produce Lifelong Learners” as one of their goals. Students’ abilities to synthesize learning and connect one subject to another are critical to achieving that goal, increasing the numbers of interdisciplinary courses offered at most schools.
Additionally, most institutions of higher learning aim to produce informed citizens who can make intelligent decisions as part of the democratic process. Colleges attempt to instill honesty and integrity by relying on the honor system to encourage youth to do the right thing even when no one is looking. At my college, the teachers were not allowed to be present in any classroom during exams; we were taught to depend on one another’s integrity to make sure the process worked and rewarded knowledge rather than duplicity.
Looking at the list of these qualities, it’s clear that colleges expect an enormous number of skills from their students. But it’s notable that as students enter college, the loftier goals are often missing from their lists. What do students want? They want a degree that will help them earn more money in the workplace. They also want to have a good time, and learn to be independent from their parents. “Become a lifelong learner” is nowhere on that list.
In my own case, I wasn’t sure what I wanted from my college education. I wanted to be inspired, and to explore subjects I didn’t know existed. My goals were largely academic, and had little to do with the workplace, or becoming an informed citizen, or learning the value of honesty. But once there, I learned to learn, and never again was blindsided by deadlines that seemed far in the future. Yet I wouldn’t have listed either as goals when I was a freshman.
I also learned that understanding the value of a higher education takes a lifetime, and that’s perhaps the most surprising lesson of all.
