Specialization in Education

I think we need to be spending more time thinking about what our education is getting us, and

gearing it towards giving the most it can to students. This is particularly relevant in college education, because we need to have more specialization in our education. If we are here to get jobs and degrees, the way that our education needs to be focused is on getting qualified for a job, and being as qualified as we can possibly be. That means we need to be focusing more on one specific field—which we do already as we pick majors—but we can do this more. We can make a difference in our own educations, and make the educations of our children more efficient, if we can move towards more specialization.

A Pattern for Learning

The girl I visit teach could not be more different from me. She’s a freshman; I’m a senior. She doesn’t know what she wants to major in; I’ve known since seventh grade that I would major in English. She listens to mainstream Christian Music (think Reliant K); I listen almost exclusively to British artists (think Ed Sheeran). She wants a sapphire in her engagement ring; I’m all about the diamonds. You name a topic, and we will each have a very different answer.

I found out today that we’ve both been thinking about the same question. Why do we go to college? What is the point of higher education? It should be no surprise that our answers are very different.

Priorities

“Oh, you’re an English major, huh? Cool…. So, what are you going to do with that?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.

When you think about college degrees, chances are you will start thinking about which students are more likely to get a job after they graduate. We all know that the accounting majors will have a job and the engineers (whatever it is they actually do) will too. The family life majors will probably not graduate, since they’re getting married this semester—ten bucks says they marry one of the business majors who already has a job. And so it goes, you get the picture.

Chaos on the Streets of London

I was standing with three of my friends at the bus stop for Bus 144—not a typical bus for us. It was just before 19:00 and we were running very late. Being Americans, we didn’t know we were about to enter London Rush Hour for the very first time.

Connecting the Past and the Future

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

That really makes you want to start examining your life, doesn’t it? While you examine your own life, it is probably helpful to examine the lives of the people who came before you as well. You can learn from their mistakes and successes and then move forward with your own life.

One of the most important themes of the renaissance is the idea of looking back to the past and applying it to the present. The best part of that is that it all connects together is ways we couldn’t imagine at first. The people of the renaissance looked back to the ancients—the Greeks and the Romans—to learn from them and to make advances based off what they knew.

In Hell by Tomorrow Morning

Imagine going into church one day and hearing someone give a talk in which they compare you to a spider being held over a fire. Then they tell you that the person holding you over the fire is intensely offended by your sins, and there is no reason that they are still holding on to you.

This is the way Jonathan Edwards was able to grab the attention of his congregation, and make Hell feel like a real place to them. 

Journey to the Laundry Room

“Hey, want to go to the lounge?” Ryan asked.

I had just gotten back to Provo from the Salt Lake airport, it was three in the morning, and it was snowing. I told him in my whiniest voice that I didn’t want to go. But then I looked at his face, and realized that he was close to crying—something I’d never seen before. I hurriedly shook my head. “Wait, just kidding, let’s go.”

Renaissance Men are a Big Deal

“Its just Shakespeare’s house, no big deal.”

I’ve actually heard that phrase, if you can believe it. My friend and I were in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and we were slightly lost—we found a nice park, a church, and the theatre, but we couldn’t find the house the Shakespeares lived in. She was ready to give up and go sit in a warm coffee shop, which sounded like a great way to get out of the drizzle. 

I convinced her that it would be worth our time (I may have promised something important in return, like a first born child or something), and after a little more wandering, we found the house. Then she had the privilege of being present for my English Major fan-girl moment.

History is Happening Right Now

Every Sunday when I lived in London, we took a bus out to Islington to go to church in a beautifully modern building. On the way, we would pass Charles Dickens’ house. The Charles Dickens. The actual house where he lived and breathed and walked. And everyone else would just walk by like there was nothing important about it. It’s just in the middle of a little neighborhood, near two bus stops and a library.  I have never understood history so clearly.  History wasn’t always “history.” There were people that lived it and there are people that are living it right now, including you and me.