Had someone told me on the day of my high school graduation in 1977 that I would one day be an academic, in possession of a doctoral degree and teaching at the university level, I’d have warned them that whatever they were smoking was muddling their brain. Yet, here I am, forty years later, in possession of not one, but two master’s degrees, and a doctorate, teaching at a university. How did that happen?
Throughout my junior high years I was a huge science fiction fan. One of my favorite authors of the time was Isaac Asimov. I was quite surprised to learn that Asimov not only wrote science fiction but had also penned books, short stories, and essays that ranged from religion (Guide to the Bible), chemistry (he was educated as a biochemist), engineering, and the list goes on. This realization intially confused me. How could a science fiction writer be so bold as to write on so many different topics? How could he know enough in each of those fields to qualify himself to write books on them? It would be many years before I encountered the term “polymath”, but surely Asimov earned the title.
One of the ‘goals’ of the nursing department is that we develop ’life long learners’. What this means, I suppose is up for some debate but I think, generally, that what is meant is that we prepare our students to learn how to identify their professional learning needs and help them develop the skills needed to meet those on-going needs. After all, health care is an ever-evolving field and constant learning is required. As I have pointed out to my students for many years, many of the diseases that we deal with today were not identified
I ‘attended’ a presentation by Story Musgrave, the astronaut, on “Designing your life” or some such similar topic. While I wasn’t overly impressed with his general rambling presentation style, I was very impressed with the message that threaded throughout his story. I took several keys away from the presentation.
The first takeaway was the importance of curiosity in achieving an effective
life. From high school drop out, he went on to earn a BS in math and statistics,
MBA in operations analysis and computer programming, BA in chemistry, MD, and MS
in physiology and biophysics within an 8 year period. He would later earn an MA
in literature. To me, the broad range of areas, as much as the time frame for
these accomplishments, says a great deal. He explored the areas that interested
him. He committed himself to those areas. Most students today would be
counseled to choose a singular path and follow it. Yet, the life he built for
himself was one based on the intersections of his interests. Each area of
interest exposed him to ideas that he wanted to explore further and so he did.
By not limiting himself to a given field, he opened up new avenues for self
expression and provided himself the skills to create new opportunities.
One of the hallmarks of the well-educated person is, I think, the ability and willingness to explore all sides of an issue before making a decision. Unfortunately, it seems that few people, even those who are, in fact, well-educated, truly take the time to explore an issue before taking a stance on it. And, to a large extent, I get it. It’s hard to do. It’s hard, not only because it takes time and effort, but because we are bombarded by so much information from so many different sources and on so many different topics that it is difficult to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. What is important? What should I be concerned with? What issues can I reasonably relegate to secondary or tertiary concern and on which should I focus my attention?