Walking with Alice

I have one disturbed mind – . Save us ALICE . by amihedgehog at deviantART

We have a briefing session with new students tomorrow and I'm supposed to say something as student advisor. We had a similar briefing with first year students last semester when I also had to give a little speech, basically to promote the department. Tomorrow is different, as they are fresh new intakes who just came in for registration today. Most will be from the matriculation centre, or Centre for Foundation Studies (CFS), as they call it now, while some will be direct-intake students. Unlike the previous audience, these students won’t have to decide whether they want to join the Accounting, Business or Economics departments for another year.

What do I tell them?

Welcome to the Garden of Knowledge and Virtue. You are about to begin what could be the most amazing four years of your life, when you will discover yourselves, good and bad; build relationships that may last your entire lifetime, and prepare yourselves to take on the world.

PFFT! Like that will work.

What is the value of university education anyway? What is university education?

An ustaz who taught me to read the Quran told a story about a man who traveled to another village to see a famous teacher to learn the religion. The teacher accepted the man as his student, but instead of actually teaching him religion, the teacher had the man doing menial work around his house. The man was puzzled, but wouldn’t dare confronting the teacher about his education. So he stayed with the teacher for several years doing all sorts of work, everything the teacher told him to do, without even once sitting down for a real lesson. One day the teacher simply told the man that his lesson was complete and he should return to his village. You can guess the rest: the man returned to his village, somehow discovered that he was *educated* after all, and went on to become a famous teacher himself.

Where I’m going with this? (No idea myself)

A student came to see me a few months back because he had to. He was one of the students whose file I have, supposedly for monitoring, for having poor grades. Interestingly he came from a very good school, so I asked why he was performing so poorly. “Motivation” he said. All he could think of was money, and how to get rich, and he only stayed in school because of his parents.

Where am I going with this? (Again) (No idea, really)

Perhaps I should tell the students that they are not in school anymore, and learning in university is (or at least it’s supposed to be) different from school. They should figure out why they are here, and what they expect to get after four years. University education is not the be all and end all, and the most important lessons they can learn is often not found in the classrooms and textbooks.

But then again, most likely I’ll just tell them a little bit about the program, who I am, who the head of the department is, and that they should come see a staff member for information instead of asking their seniors.