With an education that resembles a cattle-car ride meandering through bureaucratic hurdles and sweeping views of rigid course requirements, it appears that the journey of learning is only mapped out to the Barclays Center, where students are met with a certificate and a handshake that guarantees that they did in fact, last the whole ride.
Rather than parading around the enshrined slogan, “Best Bang for Your Buck Education,” administrators can further improve educating by providing accessible, personalized teaching that excites individuals. Instead of saturating students with glories of the “flexible-core” curriculum, prioritization should be redirected to a largely enigmatic, but incredible resource at Baruch College — the independent study.
You remember those lessons in class, whether it be in eighth grade, or last semester. You loved every second of a specific topic and your curiosity grew so intense, that your intentions of entering school were overtaken by the hope of added insight into your passion. And though you knew the lesson wouldn’t last for the entire term, you were hopeful it might.
What if you could actually devote an entire semester to the very topic that once quickened your pulse, instead of taking a class with multiple topics pushed into one tiny semester of learning? The independent study grants students a semester of intellectual freedom to truly research and explore a focused topic under the advisement of a professor, and allows them to explore their true passion.
Since you determine the topics, the flexibility and the opportunity for individualized, measurable growth far outweigh other traditional learning experiences at Baruch. The true tragedy though — due to rampant inaccessibility to information surrounding it — students don’t know much about it. Information on independent studies is mentioned in only one place on the Baruch website —buried in the middle of a page called Forms and Applications, where a single paragraph description –– that’s sandwiched between lengthy details for the more frequented credit appeals form and credit overload application –– is all the information deemed appropriate for such an opportunity.
Spaces that encourage students to indulge in their own curiosity and to learn for the sake of learning, are nothing more than injustices if subjected to the dark. The potential for groundbreaking education is very possible, but, the administration, needs to crave real education too. Shine a light on Independent Study for that student, that may have an idea, but lacks the environment to which it can be developed, for true education requires free thinking.
