Three and half years ago when I walked onto this campus, I expected to learn. I expected to learn about journalism as well as a myriad of other subjects on some level.
I expected to make friends and hear their stories, have fun and leave with a better understanding of the world.
What I didn't expect, however, was to find those few individuals who would change the way I saw the world without even remembering who I was -in some cases, not even ever knowing my name.
After completing nearly 200 credit hours on the Athens campus, I've come in contact with dozens of professors. And although many of those have done a great job of instructing me in journalism, psychology, Spanish or whatever else I've decided to take (or the university has required me to take), there are only a handful that have influenced my life in a way that will help me become not only a better journalist but a better person.
Part of the onus falls on me, the student. Taking the time to get to know certain professors on an individual level has been the most rewarding part of my time on this campus. And, trust me, there are professors on this campus that have some amazing stories.
Yet once or twice a year I came across a professor that demanded so much of his or her students, not in terms of curriculum, but instead in terms of just being a decent human being.
It pains me to say that in the university setting, we're so bent up on producing great professionals that we've missed what's truly important in life - producing great human beings.
University professors have knowledge about life that very few people have. Think about it -these are people who get paid to know stuff, and that's about it. Anthropology professors get paid to understand different cultures, foreign language professors to live in other cultures, psych. and soc. profs to understand people and how they function.
And whether the professors like it or not, the majority of students will only make it through the 101 survey course before losing interest in the subject. And the only reason they even go that far is because the university requires it. Is learning about Pavlov's dogs and the past subjunctive form of to run really going to make me a better sports writer? And, more importantly, is it going to make me a better human being?
Don't get me wrong; this university does one thing great -producing professionals. But when I die, do I want people at my funeral saying, Man
that guy sure could write a heck of a lede or, His ability to research a story was phenomenal. And did you see his use of the inverted pyramid early in his career? I mean, for real, this isn't what we want.
If I'm remembered as the man whose greatest contribution in life was writing solid stories, then I'm the one who missed out on life. If I'm remembered for anything but making the world a better place, then I've lost out on a great opportunity.
The people that come through a university setting are empowered in a way that gives them more privilege than anyone else in society. The influence that the people on this campus could have on the world is endless. And if professors are leaving it up to students to figure this out all on their own while filling our notebooks with the composition of volcanic rocks and how to use Lexis-Nexis for the 17th time in my college career, then tens of thousands of students will leave this campus headed toward a eulogy filled with praises about that person's profession and nothing else.
So, thanks to all the professors out there who are dedicated to investing into their students what's really important, for forcing us to think critically about certain issues. This should be the model of our survey courses, at the very least. And for the rest of the more professional courses, it wouldn't be bad to make those a bit more human either.
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