I wish there was less ant-mindedness at this University.
Oftentimes when my fellow students hear that I’m taking classes in the history of mathematics or African drumming, they ask, “Wow, how does that fit in with your major?” or “If that’s not a requirement then why are you taking it?” I then have to explain that there are a broad range of subjects that interest me, and that I’m using my college years as an opportunity to explore them.
Ants know exactly what line of work they will find themselves in. Some will be queens, others will be workers and others will be drones. They pride themselves on efficiency, hard work and walking in a single-file line.
Although this is quite remarkable, I believe that college students should take a different approach. We should step outside the line and try to discover new things by taking a variety of interesting classes.
Bright red letters on my MyASU page complain that I am “off track.” This means I am not following the prescribed course of study for my major. I understand that if ants get off track, they might not make it back to the anthill with food to feed the colony. So I understand that for ants, “off track” could pose a problem. But for students, what’s wrong with a bit of interdisciplinary enrichment?
We may be career driven, but we should also explore the huge world around us and acquire a taste for all sorts of disciplines and types of knowledge. Unlike the ants, who can learn only the arts of food-carrying, hive-building and self-defense, we students can choose to broaden our horizons in the arts, history, the sciences, music, languages and many new emerging fields.
Recently in my philosophy class, we had a fascinating discussion on meanings of words. We, the students, had to wrack our brains to think like philosophers in order to engineer objections and solutions to unforeseen complications in our views. But on the way out of class, someone still remarked as usual, “I wish the professor would just tell us each philosopher’s theory, so that we’ll know them for the test, and we can write our papers more easily.”
Yes, I suppose that if we were ants we would seek out the quickest, most efficient path toward the dead bug or the soda can. But in learning, the journey or the process is what educates us and stretches our minds. We should not only glean information but we should learn how to learn, how to think brilliant thoughts and develop our creativity.
Although ants have sophisticated compound eyes, we college students should be able to see much further, past the next test and into our futures, where knowledge and education will enrich our lives.
No offense to ants, because they are great workers, and they do their jobs admirably. But we college students are different from ants — we have an opportunity to be creative and explore the world outside the anthill.
Why not take advantage of it?
Reach Hannah at hannah.wasserman@asu.edu.
