What the Best College Students Do - Hardcover

Bain, Ken

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674066642 ISBN 13: 9780674066649

Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2012

Synopsis

The author of the best-selling What the Best College Teachers Do is back with more humane, doable, and inspiring help, this time for students who want to get the most out of college―and every other educational enterprise, too.

The first thing they should do? Think beyond the transcript. The creative, successful people profiled in this book―college graduates who went on to change the world we live in―aimed higher than straight A’s. They used their four years to cultivate habits of thought that would enable them to grow and adapt throughout their lives.

Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, fame, or the admiration of people in their field, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguished the best college students from their peers. These individuals started out with the belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This led them to make connections across disciplines, to develop a “meta-cognitive” understanding of their own ways of thinking, and to find ways to negotiate ill-structured problems rather than simply looking for right answers. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they were not demoralized by failure nor overly impressed with conventional notions of success. These movers and shakers didn’t achieve success by making success their goal. For them, it was a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks in order to learn and grow.

About this title

About the Author

Ken Bain was President of the Best Teachers Institute. He was also the founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Vanderbilt University and taught at New York University, Northwestern University, and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His books include What the Best College Teachers Do, What the Best College Students Do, and Super Courses.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 7: Curiosity and Endless Education

On a hot September afternoon, four hundred students crushed into a small auditorium looking for seats on the long rows that curved around like giant horseshoes. Students eased their way down an aisle and to a row where they slide past other people to find a chair. As the room filled with chattering voices, each one grew louder to compete with the clamor around them.

After a few minutes, a tall, thin man wearing white running shoes, brown trousers, and a blue shirt entered and stood at a podium in the front of the room. From their seats, most of the students could look down at the top of his head. He clipped on a lavaliere microphone and cleared his throat.

“I know it’s hot in here,” he said, almost shouting over the chatter. “But we’ve got work to do.” As the students stopped talking, he continued. “This is History 112, and I suppose most of you are here because you think you’re required to take this class. Well, you are not,” he said as he moved from behind the podium and looked toward the back row.

A soft murmur rippled across the room as students turned from side to side and whispered some expression of disbelief. “But wait,” he quickly added, thrusting his hands in the air as if to stop some oncoming locomotive. “This course is by definition a part of getting a liberal education at this institution, but nobody in the world is requiring you to pursue such broad learning. You will not be whipped in the public square if you don’t. No one will imprison or fine you. You are in charge of your own education.”

As students listened, he continued. “I want you to think about whether you really want to get this kind of education. I want you to understand both its beauty and utility, then you can decide if it is for you.” The room grew still now, and a soft breeze floated around the space as the air conditioning finally kicked in.

Within a few minutes, he had unfurled a brief history of liberal education, and told them that “liberal” came from the Latin for “free” (liber), and it was the kind of schooling that free (as opposed to slave) children received in the ancient world. In the modern version, students explored a host of disciplines from the sciences to the humanities, taking a deep approach to important issues that those disciplines could help them address.

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674066642
• ISBN 13: 9780674066649
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304