The Crisis of Reflective Thinking in Higher Education
Frazzled. Sleep deprived. Distraught at the unpredictability on the horizon. My tear ducts flexed their muscles in the case of a snap, but in that moment, emotions were the last thing I wanted to feel. Quite a different picture than the sunny SoCal lifestyle USC advertises — but all too real for the flustered second semester senior.
Six months ago, I found myself having one of those days. Stumbling out of the academic prison of Leavey Library, I took ease as I urgently walked across the quad to a more welcoming spot. Office hours.
My professor’s spacious corner office on the second floor of VKC had quite a reputation. Walk into the waiting room at the wrong time, and you’d face a line of eager students discussing case studies due tomorrow or complicated questions from the required reading.
But I will admit something. I almost never bore the line for one of these purposes. I spent my time in VKC330 hoping for clarity. I admired this professor, and I cherished the opportunity to ask questions without readily available answers in textbooks. As a second semester senior, I exposed my fears for the future while clinging onto creativity for the myriad of possibilities out there.
I sought candid advice on my next steps. I never got it.
Instead of giving me answers, he sought to instill a different skill into my headspace— the ability to stop and reflect upon what I want.
On one particular Tuesday I was especially frenzied. Perhaps my thesis deadline was coming up, or perhaps my latest LSAT practice test had been less than stellar. It doesn’t matter. Somewhere in the midst of conversation, he stopped me mid-sentence and suggested I go find a quiet place on campus and “just think for a while.”
The mere suggestion was almost incomprehensible.
Where would time to “just think” fit between between 18 units of class, 4 clubs, and the numerous other social obligations I was responsible for? These thoughts raced through my head as I nodded in agreement, knowing full well tree-time would not fit in my calendar anytime soon.
I’d like to say that a few weeks later I finally did take the time to go relax and ponder my true passions unrestrictedly. I’d like to say that after graduation I took some time to reflect as I decided what was next. But caught up in the pressure to have impressive plans as I walked across the stage on May 11th, I spent my precious last months as a student diving headfirst into informational interviews with strangers, and maxing out on LinkedIn searches. I spent my last spring break in Washington speaking with young professionals only a few years older than myself about their own paths to the present.
When May inevitably fell upon me, I finally landed, or so I thought. I moved to Washington two weeks after graduation and began an internship at the Center for American Progress. I told myself this was my dream fit, and maybe it was at the time. Anti-poverty policy was interesting, incredibly important, and meaningful work, but my intuition told me this wasn’t a permanent fit.
So when the opportunity to join Betsy Dirksen Londrigan’s campaign presented itself a few months later, I finally did what I had been running away from for so long.
I thought about it. Not for a week, or a month, politics moved far too quick for that. But I took a reflective moment away from the noise, away from the pressure to be something, not someone — and only one question remained.
What do I want?
I want to flip the House blue. I want to be on the ground talking to voters. I want an adventure. I want to help elect more women to office. I said yes for me, not for my resume — and I have never been more fulfilled as a human being.
As the campaign season has ended and I transition to my next chapter, I’ve had more than a few days this time to ponder life’s big questions. I’ve wandered to the Jefferson memorial and thought about the meaning of justice, and discovered hidden coffee shops where I’ve grappled with the future of democracy. I’ve given myself plenty of tree-time to recover from the mile-a-minute pace of the campaign.
Romantic?
Try excruciating. I’ve lived the last two months of my life caught between a life of beautiful discovery, and one of mental misery. Every day that I let my mind wander to its own devices, I am left with more questions and greater curiosities than I previously thought possible. Despite the discomfort, I keep forging on.
I’m trying to embrace deep thinking in a way that I have never done before, and perhaps in a way that I didn’t know how to do very well during my undergraduate career. When I inevitably hit the point in my day when I find myself trapped in perplexing thought, I remind myself that there is a purpose to this madness. By reading a lot and spilling my mind to the page, I’ve grown more cognizant of my own passions, and simultaneously aware of my current limitations. Best of all, I’ve had the time to reflect that I’m still incredibly unsure what my future holds.
When I return to the hustle soon and begin working again, I believe I will be more grounded for it. But I’m not doing it for that.
For one of the first times in my life, I am training myself to reflect and value thinking for its own sake. Life rarely gives us breathing room, so I’m trying to capitalize on the time I have now. It may not happen for a very long time again. I am training myself to remember that life is not a race, as much as we want it to be sometimes. There’s beauty in slowing down, but only if we know how.
I don’t know how yet, but I am trying.
As my professor let onto just a few months ago, thinking has value. My frenetic disarray was likely nothing new for this professor, sadly. But I am grateful for his ability to push me to see beyond the hamster ball of finding your first job. I kept coming back to office hours out of a desire for more, of something I wasn’t finding in most classrooms.
What a disappointment that truly is.
The truth is, I loved USC. I feel so lucky to have studied alongside brilliant students and innovative professors. I feel lucky because I didn’t spend every moment in the frenzied sleep-deprived state that characterized second semester senior year. I took chances, fell out of love, and I failed more than a few times. I made wonderful friends who challenged me to think about topics I didn’t know existed, and for that I am forever grateful.
But those moments of ah-ha and holy shit should have occupied more of my headspace as an undergraduate. Guilt for not being in the library should have played no role in their occupation. Discovery and wonder should be the entrée in higher education, not the optional appetizer.
Because what if I hadn’t ventured into office hours? What if I hadn’t been subconsciously unsatisfied with the game I was playing? Deep-thinking shouldn’t be optional instruction for those that seek it; it should be central to classes ranging from Computer Science to the History of Broadway Musicals.
Why is that the burden of universities, one may ask? Because it is one that universities take upon themselves to fulfill. It is in their very creeds. The mission of the University of Southern California follows…“the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit.” Sounds like transformative thinking to me. Yet these weighty words are utterly meaningless if college remains a race to graduation, if fail to prioritize deep thought and questioning along the way.
William Deresciewetz lays out this problem beautifully in his must-read manifesto, The Miseducation of the American Elite. However, aside from urging future college students to look beyond the veil of elite education, he doesn’t provide many answers for those of us already there or on the other side. A More Beautiful Question, by Journalist Warren Berger lays out methods to increase curiosity in the everyday, and even provides educators with tools for more creative teaching.
The bottom line remains: universities must do better.
I am naive, but not so naive to believe that liberal arts colleges are the only way to achieve the learning I crave for future students. As Deresciewetz explains, large research universities are fully equipped to invest in professors who can inspire and challenge us. Moreover, they have the resources to create innovative opportunities to hone the real type of leadership we should value as a society — the ability to pause, to reflect, and to think critically about what matters.
What matters is unique to each of us, but how will we ever know what that is if we are not given a space to wonder?
