(Or, "Why this is, at times, a demanding class")

Dr. Rick Olsen

I like my job.  I want to be here.  I assume that you like your job and want to be here too.  I believe that college is one of many options after high school.  I assume that you are here because you made a choice to pursue your personal development through the opportunities provided by formal education.  If you only want to be hired as a worker, go get trained.  If you only want to socialize, go home.  If you want to grow as a person, then embrace your education and then take personal responsibility for it. 

You are a student, not “the customer.”  Education is far more significant than a business transaction.  The student-teacher relationship is much richer than the customer-merchant metaphor could ever capture.  If there is a customer at all, it is the citizens of this state and country, and your children.  Tax dollars make this education affordable and your children and fellow citizens will be direct beneficiaries, or sufferers, of the person you become.   

Learning how to learn is as important as learning itself.  My role is to act as coach.  The course content is our common challenge.  I understand that my expectations are fairly high.  View that as a compliment to what I see as your potential.  I want each of you to succeed in mastering the course content.  I hope you will look back with pride at having achieved positive changes within yourself through this course. 

Learn to enjoy the striving for excellence.  Excellence is pursued because it is, of itself, a right thing to strive for.  Do not be intimidated into mediocrity by peers or your own ability to be “good enough” without much effort.  I make the assumption that we are creatures of habit.  A goal of this course is to develop good habits.  Look for ways that this course material—and your efforts to master it—can change the way you perceive, think, feel, respond and act.  Look for ways to turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. Turn your education into action.  To a large extent, you are what you do. 

Many of you ask college to prepare you for a career.  That request comes with some clear implications: In a career you will be asked to put in a 40 hour week and be at work by eight or nine in the morning.  You’ll likely be allowed about 30 minutes for lunch.  A career will not allow for daytime TV, late night TV, or skipping work without being fully prepared to make up for the time you lost.  A career is not conducive to habitual mid-week partying, late night web surfing, or any other activity that would undermine your ability to perform to your highest potential the next day.  If you strive to act maturely as a student you could likely be done studying by 8:00 pm., enjoy the weekends and still get solid grades.  The “40-hr.-week-approach” is both demanding and liberating! 

Active reading, attendance, enthusiasm, participation, efforts to personalize the material, assisting your classmates and asking questions are not required . . . but then success in this class, or in life, are not required either.  Don’t wait until you graduate to be your best self and act “professionally.”. 

I realize many of you work and we all have lives outside of the classroom.  However, college is a special and short season in your life.  College is ideally a time to immerse yourself in the life of the mind and create or refine the compass that will guide you on your life-journey.  Work to find ways to focus on your studies, knowing that these efforts are what is called for, for now.

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