Sure, college is a place you go to learn.
You go into it with an idea of what you want to do or a plan of figuring out what you want to do and then focusing your studies to reach your goals. If you go to a liberal arts college, like Hope, you have the opportunity to be exposed to areas outside of your chosen discipline within your four years of classes.
Classes however, are only one of the many settings in which you can learn in college. One of my favorite settings: lectures and panel discussions.
There’s always some kind of conversation happening on campus that you can go, for free, sit down and listen, expand your range of knowledge on a topic from people who want to share something they are passionate about.
This semester I’ve attended lectures on MLK Civil Rights, being gay and Christian, the psychological/biological basis of sexual orientation, the transition of life after college and finding meaning in your work, and, most recently, how God and science are involved in health and healing.
As you can see from the select few I have attended, topics are far reaching. There’s bound to be something that interests you being talked about on campus throughout the course of a semester. I would encourage taking the hour or so out of your schedule to take advantage of the abundant wealth of knowledge that exists within a college community.
There is really only one time in life, unless you end up living in a college town or become a professor yourself, that you will have this kind of opportunity to hear about people’s ideas, research or experience within their field at your finger tips.
So, go ahead. Attend a lecture. Take a friend. Talk about it afterwards. Have conversation about topics that interest and challenge you. Listen to people and discuss questions and ideas. Learn something new. The opportunities abound.