Be an Individual

 “How to Become a Deep Thinker at College,” was an article we were assigned to read last week in Inquiry-101. It was about how to succeed, “The students who make great mental leaps, and really become more sophisticated thinkers, are those who have more than enough time to think about, work on, grapple with, and revel in their coursework.” Some simple steps the author provided in this article were:

1.       Choose a mixture of courses that all seem interesting to you

2.       Calculate the number of hours per week you will need to handle for the workload for these courses

3.       Double this total, keep this number of hours free in your schedule

4.       If one of your goals is to become a deeper more nuanced thinker, then you need time- lots of time.

I agree with the author, I believe until a college student knows exactly what they want to pursue in life they should take a mixture of classes that interest them. Who knows, maybe they will find a subject they have never found interesting before and pursue that. It is also good to always keep an open mind and be open to anything. With that, I also agree that students must manage their time wisely. It is never good to fall behind in homework with college. With all these ideas in mind, this article relates to a class discussion last week regarding “agency.” In case you do not remember or know, agency is the capacity of people to make choices. It is making beneficial choices for you. Agency and the steps of becoming a deeper thinker are basically the same idea. They both involve helping your own self to become better. By taking many diverse classes it helps you to see a broad range of topics that will inform you with different interesting things and may pique your interest. By managing your time so you can complete all of your homework is helping you to make beneficial choices for yourself. Agency and deep thinking go hand in hand. If you have both of those in college then you will succeed no doubt.