What To Study?

I frequently ask prospective students on tours what they want to study. Often, I get blank looks and long pauses and finally, “I don’t know.” Unfortunately, it seems to be stressful for the whole family, not just the student. At Hampshire it’s OK to relax a little more when someone asks you that question. I certainly don’t expect the response to be a singular answer. Oddly, what you answer back isn’t even important, it’s just a conversation starter – an interaction.

A response to an asked question is really the gateway to leaning; it’s that technique of a back and forth question-and-answer interaction that hopefully turns into a useful conversation of discovery for both people. It’s not that either one of us knows the correct answer(s) – frequently we don’t. Instead we use conversation as a method of discovering our interests and possible actions based on those interests through suggestions of books to read, good classes to take and appropriate people to talk with.

Certainly it’s not that anyone expects you to know what job you will want for the rest of your life right now. You’ll most likely be wrong no matter what your answer or how much you believe it to be true. It is, however, a question of what you actually want to do all day. What do you like to do? What are you willing to invest a lot of effort in? What, at the end of day has made you happy?

Our style is to find promising situations and jump into them and then later assess the outcome. A Hampshire grad once said, “ Life is full of once in a lifetime opportunities.” Some he took, others he let pass by and later he found more. It’s about thoughtful interactions and timely participation judiciously chosen.

Work on things you find interesting and that will offer you still yet more options later (both short term and long term). You need both sides – fun now and possibilities later. Work on projects that are hard, but doable. It’s just like working out. You need to stretch a little, work up a sweat, build up stamina and get stronger by doing so – over time.

An important criterion for judging the worth of what you’re working on is suspense. Yep, just like in the movies. If you aren’t worried about how your work is going to come out, if there isn’t uncertainty, what you’re working on isn’t very important or hard enough. Some things are way too easy to do to really benefit you. Remember, you’re trying to learn and grow, not just turn in homework. If you just want to turn in homework you should go somewhere else.

Find questions that make the world interesting to you by learning enough to notice what those questions should be. With deep insights and strong questions the answers take care of themselves.

gunther