This past week I officially graduated --
Convocation -- from Carleton University with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Political Science. I could obviously write a lengthy post talking about how much of an amazing experience my time at Carleton has been, but instead, I'm going to recycle an old one. And although I wrote the following in March, it is still just as meaningful today, so please enjoy
"5 quotes to describe the BA experience."
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On Monday, March 15, I had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of prospective students and their parents during Carleton’s March Break Program. I spoke alongside Susan Whitney, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, and Chris Brown, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs. We gave two presentations on the Bachelor of Arts degree at Carleton and what makes it so special.
While my faculty counterparts spoke about many of the technical aspects of the BA degree, such as how many credits it entails, what programs of study are available, which programs allow for co-op and work terms and the difference between a general and honours degree, I took a different, more unconventional approach to explaining the Carleton BA program. Based on my experiences, I used a series of quotes to describe what getting your BA degree at Carleton would be like. For anyone who couldn’t be there, here is a summary of my remarks.
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. – Malcolm Forbes
I used this quote to explain that we want students to come to university, specifically Carleton, and ask questions. There is no better place to question your surroundings – your social environment, politics, science or anything – than in the university classroom. I brought up the fact that one of Carleton’s older advertising campaigns asked students to ‘question everything,’ and we asked them specifically, ‘What do you want to change?’ The university received many different responses, such as: I want to change untold stories into headlines we can’t ignore and I want to change what it means to be diagnosed with HIV.
This quote is meant to explain the fact that the more you learn, the more you’ll realize that there is so much more to learn. It’s like that old saying – the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.
Great minds do not think alike.
Everyone is different. We don’t learn the same, nor do we think, act, write or speak the same. For that reason, the flexibility that is incorporated into Carleton’s BA degree is one of the most important aspects of it. Out of the 20 credits I must obtain for my Political Science degree, only nine have had to be Political Science courses. Because of this, I have been able to take courses in a wide variety of subjects and in multiple ways, including lecture courses, seminars, in-class learning and CUTV. The goal is your degree, and at Carleton, everyone can achieve this in their own unique way.
The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. – Herbert Spencer
Despite what you may have heard, university is not sitting in a class room taking notes, studying those notes at home, and then writing exams. There is much more to university than course work. At Carleton, we place special importance on applying knowledge learned inside the classroom practically outside of the classroom and in the community. One of the greatest examples of this is our
Alternative Spring Break Program whereby students make connections between the knowledge and skills they learn in the classroom and the service it provides in the community. Students are also recognized for their extra-curricular involvement at Carleton with a
Co-Curricular Record (CCR), a transcript of your volunteer activities.
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. – Winston Churchill
Your time studying at university should not seem like a one-way conversation. Your university education should be a persistent dialogue. And at Carleton, it will be. I guarantee you that you and your professors will share in the teaching responsibilities – you will learn from them and they will surely learn from you. Carleton’s professors truly make it one of the most amazing institutions to study at.
Anything but textbook.
This phrase stems from Carleton’s belief that we should take another look at what a university education can be; that your experience here should be and can be an unconventional one; and that everything you do here will be exciting and extraordinary. Whether it’s business students living outside for five days to raise awareness and funds for youth homelessness, or science students traveling to Mobile, Alabama on their spring break to build homes and engage in cultural meditation, being at Carleton means looking at things from a broader perspective. As one of our posters says, “It’s a real world experience that’s anything but textbook.”
I was reminded this past weekend during a trip to a cottage in Notre-Dame-du-Laus, Quebec that although I really do not know much about modern ‘technology,’ how it works or how to define it, I know what I value it most for: it's ability to allow me to obtain and share information instantly. Driving through the petite towns of cottage country and winding around the hills that would get us to our destination, all BlackBerries stopped working. At the cottage, we were without a satellite dish, computers, Wi-Fi and everything that comes with those things. It wasn’t my BlackBerry or laptop themselves that I missed; I felt de-linked; I was literally disconnected from the world.
