Problems by Jone

Problems by Jone - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

This New Years, I resolved to create problems.
No, I am not planning to go out into the world and raise havoc; I merely intend to make life a little more difficult for myself. Though this may seem counter-intuitive, since people generally try to find easier ways to do things, I believe that academic ease is never a recipe for success. Most of us go through our academic careers finding the easiest ways to pass classes and get decent grades, without giving much thought to the actual quality of our learning. I intend to break this cycle of comfortable learning by forcing myself to pursue knowledge in order to solve problems, instead of just passively soaking up information.
I believe that setting problems for myself will transform me into an active learner. Merely attending classes and studying for tests doesn’t require that much mental effort, and consequently any knowledge I acquire doesn’t bear much personal significance - or remain long in my brain. If I set myself a problem, however, and view my studies as a vehicle for understanding the issue and finding a plausible solution, suddenly those boring lectures become much more riveting. Since my classes will most likely not directly concern my problem, I will have to find ways to apply the information I learn in class to my problem and solicit any information I lack from professors, books or the internet. I will need to go after information actively, and not just wait for instructors to thrust dusty theorems down my throat.
I’ll bet most students, frustrated with a particularly dull theoretical subject, have exasperatedly uttered the well-worn phrase, “but I’ll never use that in real life.” In fact, any subject that isn’t interesting to me seems boring and useless. And who wants to put time and effort into understanding dull and meaningless material? I definitely don’t. Unless, of course, that useless material is given a purpose in the form of a problem. The key here will be choosing problems that I am genuinely interested in and finding ways to use the information I learn in class to answer my questions. This will give my education a more immediate purpose, and infuse my lessons with emotional significance. Lessons that are emotionally significant are not only more readily memorized, but also encourage active learning by making the material more interesting. I’ll be happy to go to class and learn, because the information I will gain from it has an immediate application.
Perhaps the greatest consequence of learning through problems is the strategy’s application to the “real world.” Though all jobs encourage or require learning in some form, the purpose of the workplace is to solve problems, not memorize data in order to complete homework assignments. Practicing problem-solving as a student will teach me how to actively find solutions to problems I encounter, without the risk of losing my job over a few mistakes. In the real, adult world, no one is going to go out of their way to show me how things are done, where to learn what and how to solve any dilemmas that may arise. But if I stop expecting that while still in school, I will learn how to rely on myself, and thus prepare for the adult world.
So I resolve to create problems for myself. But how do I plan to go about doing this? First, I will need to decide the scope of my problem. Is it a question that can be solved in a semester, a school year, my educational career? Or is it a topic I can continue to work on my entire life? The larger and more complicated the problem, the more time and information I will need to solve it.
The second step is to strategize. I will brainstorm on the material I think I’ll need to know in order to solve my problem, and where that information can come from. Next I will figure out how the courses I’m taking can help, and where I can find the information they do not provide. Then I will set myself weekly, monthly, quarterly and/or yearly goals of where I want to be in terms of solving the problem. I’ll create a game plan for when I will learn what, and will set aside a little time every day just to work on my problem. Most importantly, I will commit to my problem. I will not just come up with some ideas and let them fester at the back of my mind - I will learn to resist the temptation to sink into laziness and actively work on problem solving.
Creating problems will not only make me a better student by forcing me to actively learn and giving my classes meaning, but will also prepare me for my future workplace. It doesn’t matter if my problems have solutions already - so long as it’s something I don’t understand and am curious about. I will pursue my own solutions instead of just taking someone else's answer as the be all end all. After all, that’s what education is really all about - figuring out the answers to questions you are curious about.