Education is achieved.

This is the first in a series of summer blog posts highlighting quotes and poems related to education and the college experience. The first quote of the summer is:

Is education a spectator sport or is it an active pursuit of insight and understanding? In your years of primary and second education, education most likely felt like it was something which was done to you rather than something you were pursuing. You didn’t have a choice – you had to attend school or risk being punished for truancy; you had to study the subjects your administrators and state required or not graduate; you had to sit in your assigned seat and be quiet while the teacher talked or be assigned detention. A child’s role in education is often to accept the information they are given and then regurgitate it later in a multiple-choice test. This is education being received – Einstein would be appalled.

In its ideal state, education is hands on and brains on. Which learning experiences from your early education are the most memorable – passively sitting in a classroom and completing a worksheet, or actively researching a topic you were interested in or completing science experiment? When we take an active role in our own education, we not only have more fun, but we learn more.

College is the perfect time to take more responsibility for your own education and to shift from a receiving mindset to an achieving mindset. You now get to choose which school you attend, which major you pursue, which classes you take as your electives and general education requirements, which research opportunities you seek out and how you apply what you have learned over the summer. When you recognize the freedom of choice which you have and then take responsibility for your education, you will become empowered to achieve remarkable outcomes.