In a little more than a month, I will start my second year at Mount Holyoke College. I have learned a lot in the past year, both about how to succeed in the U.S. education system and about what I want out of my education. Here the five biggest lessons I’m taking away from my experience so far.
1. Talk, but only if you have something to say.
In Russian, there is a popular expression лить воду (literally, “to pour water”), which means saying or writing about something that does not add anything new, but keeps the conversation going or fills in the space on paper.
Students often use this technique when they want to make the impression on the professor that they are involved in a class discussion but when in fact they don’t understand the material or don’t care about the topic. Professors, for their part, try to spot students using the technique and discourage them from doing it.
In my first semester in the US, in one of my 300-level seminars, I found some topics very challenging, but since a big percentage of the grade depended on class participation, I still made attempts to speak by “pouring water.”
But what happened in this situation was that other students would challenge my statements. I was forced to explain my statements or defend them with further evidence, and I soon realized that pouring water would not get me through one of these discussions.
Read the rest of this entry »