Making the most of college: Students speak their minds (Book Review)

Light, R. J. (2001). Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Richard Light’s book presents strategies and advice for making the best of the undergraduate years. His discussion has 3 main foci: characteristics of courses which students tend to learn and perform best in, how faculty can integrate collaborative projects into their syllabi to stimulate and encourage student understanding, and changes those in leadership positions can champion to increase student engagement. It was Light’s intention to suggest how all college students can maximize their postsecondary experience; however, his use of 1600 Harvard University seniors as a sample may not have yielded findings which generalize to the population of college students as a whole. The author anticipates this critique but asserts that despite his homogenous sample the majority of suggestions presented would work well on any campus whether it be “highly selective or not, private or public, large or small, national or regional”(p. 11).

Perspective of an author was something I had given little thought to while reading previous works. However, it is a vital piece of information to understand when attempting to determine if the points made in a book are valid and to which populations. Light writes from the standpoint of a Harvard University professor and while Ivy League institutions attract the best and brightest students, they also attract students with tremendous privilege. Common knowledge suggests that Harvard students are more likely to come from wealthy families who can provide them with resources for achievement and that they are less likely to encounter some of the stresses that students at other institutions may face, such as having to work while attending school. When compiling data for his book, the author failed to gather information from a diverse group of students. His Harvard-centric population may bias some of the strategies that are suggested to help students maximize their college experience.

Some of the strategies are obviously applicable to students at any college or university. For example, Light suggests that students should be taught to “think like professionals” (p. 117). By this he means that professors should take a few moments at the beginning of the term to let students know that the course will not revolve around the regurgitation of assigned readings. Rather, students will be expected to already know the material, as any professional in the field would, and be prepared to engage with classmates in discussion about it. This strategy would work at most institutions and may help students to understand their need to be autonomous learners at the postsecondary level.

In contrast, he also suggests that universities “schedul[e] classes just before dinner” (p.206) in dormitories to allow students to continue the educational dialogue while in their residential setting. I agree that this strategy may work at a small liberal-arts college, but it certainly would not at a large public university. Logistically there are too many course sections and students to make executing such a plan worthwhile and therefore this suggestion does not meet with his earlier assertion that his suggestions are applicable to most institutions of higher learning. The coordination of dinner with the course schedule is something that could only realistically take place at institutions akin to Harvard.

The ideas presented in this book seem to have applications for everyone on a college campus. For example, there are sections aimed at campus leadership, suggestions for faculty, and strategies that undergraduate students themselves can implement to maximize their own experience. Reading as an academic advisor, I found myself frequently jotting down ideas which my current students might benefit from as well as reminiscing about my own undergraduate experience and how it could have been improved. Overall, it was an eye-opening and enlightening read albeit the fact that only Harvard students were used for its research.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about how to engage students in their learning. It provides solid examples for faculty, advisors and undergraduates who wish to take their learning to a new level. In an ideal world every institution of higher learning would be able to implement these strategies. Unfortunately, every university is not Harvard. I would recommend that readers think carefully about how a strategy could be modified to work at their institution rather than taking each suggestion at face value. It could also be beneficial for readers to think about ways to engage their students that are not mentioned in the book. New frontiers in technology, such as Facebook and Second Life have opened up a whole new way for students and their universities to engage and collaborate with one another for the betterment of education.

Review & Reaction: Excellence Without a Soul (Harry Lewis)

I was assigned this book for a course entitled "Critical Thinking of University Leaders" and it has been by far the best book I've read this semester. The course, in it's entirety, revolves around why universities still need liberal education and how leaders of universities are working either for or against that ideal. We have read other works such as Nussbaum's "Cultivating Humanity", Newman's "The Idea of the University", Kerr's "The Uses of the University" and Allen Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind. Excellence revolves around why the professoriate is failing to educate its students for the challenges of tomorrow.

Lewis defines liberal education as "a period in which young people can be freed from the presumptions and prejudices with which they were raised, freed by the power of ideas to pursue their own path in life" (p.10). Personally, my undergraduate experience provided none of these things but my graduate education has. This revelation led me to consider the reasons why this might be so and I have come to the conclusion that graduate school focused much more on discourse and less on factual knowledge. The knowledge came from aggregating personal opinions, sources, and arguments from all sides rather than at the undergraduate level where the knowledge came from the most high authority: the professor (or in most cases the graduate teaching assistant).

There has been a shift in my thinking from one "right" way to the viewpoint of possibilities. Students who don't receive this opportunity are missing out on a wonderful chance to explore themselves.

For those of us in the academic advising field, I found the following quote to be particularly thought-provoking: "Students tend to have broad interests, and if their minds are already made up about what to study, their decisions should be challenged, not accepted at face value" (p.95). I find myself guilty of this on a regular basis. A student walks into my office and says that they want to pursue Business Administration and I immediately start in on the core requirements without ever really questioning how they got to this realization.