Abdo is a very thoughtful, bright, and talented college student. He is a senior at the University of Illinois – Chicago. He will be graduating with a double major: a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance. Abdo is clearly blessed with innate right-brain and left-brain aptitudes and has dedicated his undergraduate education to exploring and nurturing both. Abdo is a very talented musician and has taken up conducting and composing as well. He posts a lot about the various music ensembles he plays with and the conferences he attends. Abdo had a successful engineering internship this summer in Wisconsin that he enjoyed and thrived at. www.abtizomusic.com is his music website.
So, what was his post about on the ides of November? Here is the excerpt of a longer post:
Today's been one of those days where I have underlying anxiety around graduating. I feel like at no point throughout any of my education, high school included, was I ever advised correctly or given the tools needed to be successful. I had to figure much of this out on my own. I don't believe in blaming others for my own shortcomings, but how are you supposed to ask the right questions when you aren't even provided the right information to begin with?
Anyway, all of this to say. I believe in education. We never stop learning. I don't expect it to get any easier. Especially since I am considering graduate school much later on. I just hope when that stage arrives, it won't feel like I'm trying to navigate an empty rainforest at night with just a pocketknife and the last remaining batteries for my flashlight.
Here is my comment on his post:
Abdo. I kinda believe figuring it out on your own is a critical part of the journey. It helps define you. There are plenty of people giving advice, which to some extent is nothing more than what worked for them. This can be helpful but only if it resonates with you.
Who’s doing what you are doing in terms of music and engineering and wanting to explore photography and who knows what else.
You’re kind of a renaissance man. Embrace it but know there only a select few that can guide you and their guidance is based on their own journey.
Go forth and be amazing
My fifteen-year teaching career in my 'so called' retirement has taught me a few things. First, an important and rarely discussed part of a college education is for students to learn time and task management. There are countless methods and processes for time and task management. The methods are available in innumerable books and videos and supported by any variety of software applications and paper planning calendars. Which one is the best? The answer is simple; the one that works best for you. In college, students should find the method that works for them. Abdo is right about one thing. We provide some of the best software tools but never provide any instruction about how to use them and the plusses and minuses of each. in my experience, we let the students fend for themselves to determine how to manage task and time. There is wide variation in how good students are at doing this.
Secondly, all students need mentors. These are not people telling young folks what to do but are more so sounding boards who listen well before responding. A good mentor also provides an example of what to do rather than a sermon on what to do. Students whose parents went to college have an advantage in this regard though not all such students take advantage of this. Mentors can be anyone from other students, to professors, to summer job supervisors, to friends of the family. Just like in the case of time and task management, there is no guidebook for the networking skills to meet new people who may become acquaintances a few of whom might develop into mentors. Again, students are on their own to develop and refine these skills.
Lastly, in the case of Abdo. Who is in a position to advise and mentor a music and engineering double major on how to navigate the beautiful career choices he is facing. There are certainly those that can provide guidance in one or the other disciplines, but who can help him decide which fork in the road to take? Robert Frost talked about exactly this in The Road Not Taken but offers nothing to someone like Abdo who has come to a fork in the road in “an empty rainforest at night with just a pocketknife and the last remaining batteries for my flashlight.” As I said in my comment on his Facebook post: You're a renaissance man. Embrace it but know there only a select few that can guide you... Go forth and be amazing
The Road Not Taken
By
Robert Frost
Two
roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And
sorry I could not travel both
And
be one traveler, long I stood
And
looked down one as far as I could
To
where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then
took the other, as just as fair,
And
having perhaps the better claim.
Because
it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though
as for that the passing there
Had
worn them really about the same,
And
both that morning equally lay
In
leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,
I kept the first for another day!
Yet
knowing how way leads on to way,
I
doubted if I should ever come back.
I
shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere
ages and ages hence:
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I
took the one less traveled by,
And
that has made all the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment