I have been thinking a lot about the internet the past couple days.

By the past couple days, I mean weeks.

By weeks I mean months.

Look at what this internet has turned us into. A comedian once quipped “that we have access to all the knowledge in the world, and we go online to look at a satellite picture of our house.” A tweet I saw a few weeks ago stated something like, “I have a device in my pocket that is more powerful than the computer humans landed on the moon with. I use it to throw animated birds at green pigs hiding in houses.”

And as this New Yorker article states, we continue to develop new, unique ways of looking at the world. A more powerful cell phone, a set of glasses that can access the entirety of the internet in the blink of an eye. Our memory is no longer in our heads, it is in a device.

The news we receive comes through Twitter or Facebook links to longer articles that a friend interested in this or that posts – mostly focusing on one subject at a time. This week our focus is Kony, next week it is Chik-Fil-A, the week after it is a shooting. And we focus all of our energy on these few things for a couple days, changing our Facebook pictures, our statuses, the image of what we are putting out. Because this issue is important.

And it is. We live in a world burdened with issues, and discussion, and awareness. And our slacktivism goes on and on. Next week it will be blogs about the latest news story that changes the world.

I want to pose a question.

What if we actually did something about this?

I mean, besides change our Facebook cover photo and slap a sticker on our water bottle. Those things are effective, but what if we walked the walk. What if, instead of a world where we post a blog by our favorite author, we went to the homeless shelter and served a meal? What if we donated those nice shirts we have not worn in a month and a half to a place that will give them to people who can use them?

What if we stopped saying what we believe, and started living what we believe

Sure, there will be critics and people who are certain that it will not make a difference, but one person who took action is the only thing that has ever made a difference in the world (or so says Margaret Mead).

As time moves on, my generation – and those after me – become increasingly responsible for taking care of the world we live in. Because it is our world, and the decisions we make with our time and money shape the world we live in.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

As a first-semester freshman, one of my professors asked me if I had ever thought of graduate school. I had vaguely heard of it and had a concept that it was like more dedicated college, but I had never thought about it. Just the fact that I was in college was a shock for me at the time. I could not imagine being a sophomore, let alone walking across the grassy knoll by the lakes.

Yet somehow, after four years of hard work, of passionate involvement, of mistakes and failures, of challenges, I managed to earn that diploma.

The majority of my experience in graduate school has been about reflecting on those four years. In a number of my classes have had numerous discussions on the value and importance of an education. The more I think about it, the more we talk about it, the more I realize how incredible it is that I have the ability to be in school.

Discussions about access make me consider how I never expected to be in college, how I struggled to fill out applications, how my adjustment to the experience was. Those conversations make me grateful that I am able to say that I have earned a Bachelor’s degree. According to the United States Census in 2010, only 27.9% of United States residents above the age of 25 have a bachelors degree. I will be able to say I am part of whatever that statistic is in 2014, and I am so proud.

The process of earning a masters degree has been challenging. Being away from home has taught me about myself – who I am and what is important to me. Working a graduate assistantship has taught me a lot about the importance of professionalism and how to be an adult. My classes have taught me content that influences both my personal and professional lives. While many days I second-guess myself and over-think the struggles that face me, the days I am not doing either of those things I find myself so proud and grateful for the opportunity to be in graduate school in Oklahoma.

Over a month ago, I was working on an essay on the Intended Outcomes of Higher Education for my class on Impact of College on Students and Society. I tweeted about using a reference on Digital Identity Theory and received a response that I should share my essay via blog. So this is a slightly edited version of that essay. Please feel free to share thoughts, points of disagreement and other essential critical thoughts in the comments below! I would love to get a conversation going.

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Often students enter institutions of higher education because it is the “next step” their family expects of them. They see their courses not as ideas to be questioned and considered, but content to be mastered for the next test in order to acquire a letter that allows the student to be gainfully employed at a higher salary. One must wonder if this is because students (and society) have taught us this, or if we have taught students (and society) this. Either way, the first thing we must teach entering students is the purpose of spending time at an institution of higher education.

The purpose of higher education is to create active individuals who are capable of independent analysis based on comprehension of current and past events in order to make well-informed decisions that positively impact the world. In other words, a college graduate should be prepared to be an active citizen of the communities they will join in their post-degree journey. The community they join may be their place of employment, their neighborhood, their place of worship, their city, or another group. This ability to analyze thoughts and ideas to make informed decisions lumps a number of Learning Outcomes outlined in College Learning for the New Global Century including “knowledge of human cultures,” “personal and social responsibility,” and “intellectual and practical skills” (LEAP National Leadership Council, 2007) The learning outcomes listed by LEAP are very specific and detailed, but essentially boil down to the tangible ability to make informed and well analyzed decisions.

In order to create active citizens, we must not focus on cramming as much knowledge into a student as possible, but rather we must focus on teaching students the basics in fields like literature, art, math, science, and history as well as how to acquire any information they may require in the post-collegiate setting of their lives in order to understand the issues that surround them. We must teach students that the ideas they will discuss in higher education are not just for the test – or if they are, the test is, as writer John Green says, a measurement of “…whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed. . . The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, will make your life yours. And everything, everything, will be on it” (Green, 2012). Education should not be about getting a letter on a piece of paper, but preparing oneself to engage with the world around them.

Institutions of higher education do have a responsibility to teach students basic professional skills. However, it should be noted that colleges and universities are not professional preparation programs. Our focus should be teaching students how to learn skills that they will acquire in the workplace. Student involvement in clubs, organizations, Greek Letter Organizations and paraprofessional positions within Student Affairs departments should teach students a reasonable and useful number of transferable skills with which the student can move into the world and be successful. Being successful is defined differently by different people in different places, but it is important that when we tell students we want them to be successful, we explain what that means. It is easy to forget or skip over an essential part of teaching transferable skills – how the skills are useful to the students beyond their time in academia.

A lot of discussion has been had created recently about students and how they connect with technology. Some schools are giving out iPhones or iPads to their entire freshmen class, and theories on Digital Identity Development (Stoller, 2012) are beginning to form. Yet as institutions we still do not understand how to educate students on how to use technology not as a wheelchair or a crutch, but an aid to further their knowledge. The National Panel Report Greater Expectations discusses how “revolutionary technologies have transformed information and life” (AACU, 2002), yet our institutions generally lack integration of these technologies.  In a world with constantly evolving technology we need to ensure that students understand how to properly interact with the technology that surrounds them daily.

Students need to perceive that going to a college or university is about more than just acquiring a piece of paper (LEAP National Leadership Council, 2007). It needs to be about becoming a better person, being able to critically analyze developing skills, understanding how to apply said skills in a variety of environments and learning how to effective use technology as an extension, not a support. In order to foster this kind of environment, we need to inform potential students that these are the things we value and actually demonstrate that these are the things we value through our actions.

Reference List

AACU (2002). Greater Expectations: A new vision for learning as a nation goes to college. Washington: D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities

Green, J. (January 26, 2012). The Agricultural Revolution: Crash Course World History #1 [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yocja_N5s1I

LEAP National Leadership Council (2007). College Learning for the New Global Century. A Report from The National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America’s Promise. Washington, D.C.: Association for American Colleges and Universities

Stoller, E. (2012). Digital Identity Development. InsideHigherEd. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/student-affairs-and-technology/digital-identity-development

Clouds circle overhead as the reflection of light somehow casts the world in shades of orange. For the first time this year, my window is opening, letting in a cool breeze and occasional heavy gusts of wind. As I write this sitting on my bed, I occasional glance up and consider today.

This is the first Saturday since mid-September that I have been in Oklahoma. I was fortunate to be able to return to California two weeks back to visit some good friends and see the opening of the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University (more on that next week). Last weekend I drove down with a delegation of students from the school I work at to Arlington, Texas for the National Association of Campus Activities Central region conference. Both weekends were filled with meaningful conversations and thought-provoking moments. Which leads me to today. Saturday. A Saturday that has been a bit of a slump. My goals were huge and my motivation was low. As such, as of 7:10pm, I have not met my goals. Maybe I will after dinner.

I started the day by going to Starbucks and staring at a binder full of research articles for one of my three assignments due the last week of October. Uncertain of exactly what I was looking for or what direction I wanted to take the topic for my paper, I stared at the articles and putzed around the internet.

When the rain began, I gave up, went to Target and grabbed a few things. Then I returned to my apartment.

A friend called later in the afternoon and we talked for two hours.

I felt an almost hopeless despair before talking to my friend. An uncertain fear. One of the most important reasons we have friends is because they listen to that fear and then critically and logically dispel that fear. Through our conversation – our first since early September – I realized that the things I am scared of are not really things worth being scared of.

Being far away from home, sometimes it is easy to think that my friends have moved on, that they do not care, that I am alone. Yet almost everytime I talk to one of my friends, we pick up like talked yesterday (just more extensively).

This semester has been both hard and easy, so far. The coursework has been challenging and rigorous to the expectations I had of the program. Yet I have been able to accomplish it. This has been one of my main motivations, yet even that sometimes lets me down.

So friend, remember that you can accomplish any challenge you set your mind to. Know that sometimes you will fail. That is okay. In fact, that is fantastic, because you learned a way something does not work, a thing you do not like, an unexceptional method.

The sunset is fading from an orange to a shade of light blue-grey, as clouds dot the darkening sky above.