A free semester

Even among those of us who feel immune, it is hard to escape the idea that each thing we do has to prepare us for the next thing down the road. Of course we take classes and do internships and join clubs because they’re interesting, but we also do those things for how they will prepare us for our next internship or job or graduate school application. In a sense, while each class is an academic exploration of its own, it is also an instrument, a means to an end, of achieving the next rung on the ladder of success.

I think my own academic experience here at Duke is illustrative of that dynamic. I have taken great classes during my last seven semesters, both within and outside my major and minors. I liked the Public Policy classes because they taught me tools, methods and context for the worlds of healthcare, ethics, politics and economics, all of which I will use as I enter the working world. And I look back upon the classes outside my major with equal, if not more, fondness because they were so different. Dr. John Brackett’s History of Rock (MUSIC 143) was an awesome survey of the genesis and development of Rock ‘n’ Roll, from the 1940’s to the present. And Dr. Gerald Wilson’s American Dreams, American Realities (HIST 130D) was an intimate and critical exploration of America, its Dream and the culture of Americana.

But looking back, I notice that these eccentric classes were always peppered, one at a time, into semesters of core classes and T-Reqs. Perhaps that’s why it’s with such delight that in my final semester I’m enrolled in three classes that in no way directly prepare me for what is coming next in my life.

As a second semester senior, I am fortunate to have a job and to have finished my major requirements. Having spent the time checking boxes and preparing myself, I viewed book bagging as a clean slate and ended up in America Dreams, American Movies (ENGLISH 288), The Medieval Castle in Britain (ARTHIST 190) and History of the Book (HIST 367). These three classes—movies, castles and books—are just cool.

Will I be a film critic? No. Or an architect? No. Or a classicist? No. But these courses satisfy my curiosity and expand my worldview. Having three classes in a row on Tuesdays and Thursdays is not so much a chore as it is an adventure.

Here’s a perfect example. When Professor Woods asked on the first day why we signed up for the Books class, my answer was, “I like really old things, and the course description said we’d get to touch some.” In one of our first classes, we got to handle part of Duke’s collection of cuneiform tablets, and this past Tuesday, my small group explored an 800 year old copy of the Old Testament, complete with Latin text, gold leafing and pages of calf skin parchment.

It is a total luxury to be able to take these classes. Were my immediate future less certain, you can be sure I would have enrolled in classes better suited to the job search. But, for the first time, that’s not the case. In this, my final semester, I feel fully free to explore the boundaries of a liberal arts education.

I doubt I’m the only one who feels conflicted between taking instrumental courses and those that may only satisfy curiosity. But perhaps those are not diametrically opposed. That is, job preparation is not the sole purpose of a university. We are not just here to learn tools and skills, but also to learn how to think and to learn how to communicate and to learn how to learn.