Think outside the books and talk to learn
UCLA students Omar Bakr, Gabriel Gomez and Grace Chen participate in a Saxon Suites paper crane party for Mattel Children’s Hospital. Students should make an effort to interact with others at UCLA while in college, rather than retreating into their schoolwork.
By Carla Gharibian
Nov. 19, 2009 9:14 p.m.
I have a seven-page paper on Confucian ideals due in less than a week, a major English essay that needs to be turned in the same day, and so much Persian language homework that you would think I would be hard at work reading up for my classes.
Rather, it’s 3:45 a.m. and I have been up discussing student fee hikes, Sarah Palin on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and all other non-assignment-related items for who knows how many hours.
I am stressed, cranky and I’m pretty sure I’ve caught something that’s been going around.
Yet, with my current state out in the open, I am going to advocate that you set aside your academic ventures in favor of human interaction.
Let me make it clear that when I say “advocate,” I don’t mean consistently abandoning all work until the last possible moment.
However, there are certain moments when engaging yourself in the conversations and debates around you are equally educational to anything you can read in a textbook.
In the Dykstra Hall seventh-floor lounge, this sums up most nights for me and many of my fellow residents.
Debates on religion, abortion, same-sex marriage and every issue in between that has made itself onto a national stage is fair game for hallway banter.
I am all too painfully aware of the countless cautionary tales against procrastination that we all have been hearing since middle school.
Most times, I am in complete agreement, even when I don’t exactly act on these beliefs. However, this human interaction transcends simply procrastinating and encompasses a new approach to educating yourself and evolving your own perception of your peers that has more significant implications outside of classes.
Tracy Bui, a second-year physiological science student, said, “There are benefits because you bond with people “¦ and by doing so, you get to learn a lot about people and the way they are and why they think that way and are that way. It’s useful in developing you as a person.”
It’s one thing to read about health care proposals and their potential effects, but when you’re involved in a discussion with a fellow student, one who deals firsthand with its effects in a very real way, the experience is all the more powerful.
Attending college is one of the prime opportunities you will have to immerse yourself in a population so varied in its backgrounds, politics, religious beliefs, tastes and goals that not taking that chance to engage in it means you miss out on perhaps the most significant part of the experience.
A recent UCLA study found that those students who found themselves with ethnically different roommates, friends and dating partners exhibited fewer instances of racial prejudice.
This, of course, does not mean that those surrounding themselves with a more homogenous group of peers are immediately more prejudiced, but the benefits accompanying such proximity to diversity provide a kind of personal enrichment and education that no international relations textbook can.
Toronto’s George Brown College also found that the most desired graduates for hiring have strong interpersonal abilities, especially in communication with people of different cultures.
Interpersonal communication skills are simply something that cannot be gained from a textbook. As shallow as some procrastination-induced banter may be, believe it or not, it is still assisting in development for the workplace.
The significance of a behavioral interview in determining future success thus largely hinges on the concept of incorporation as a team player in a work environment.
Whether you are truly attending college for the sake of intellectual stimulation or for the monetary benefits that can come in the long run as a result of a college degree, the sole common denominator among all of us as UCLA students is a topic worthy of exploration in the face of studying for that next midterm.
All of us, to varying degrees, will be affected by budget cuts, student fee hikes and the like, and in these instances can explore those constants that tend to come up when we are so adamant that our particular brand of politics, religion or taste is the only legitimate one.
Though putting off that major paper is not a prerequisite, “procrastinating” for the sake of personal research does not always have to earn its bad reputation.
E-mail Gharibian at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].
