The Other Side of College Learning: A Well-Rounded Education Beyond the Textbook

No matter your major, there are plenty of facts to learn and memorize throughout college. Yet, there’s an unstated group of skills that college should also teach, skills that are often picked up if not studied directly, though you won’t find them on any syllabi. As you go through college, there are other skills worth making sure that you’ve learned, as, like it or not, you’ll be expected to have working knowledge, if not be a master, of the said skills.

Writing

You don’t need to be an English major to know how to write well, or at least how to write concisely, properly, and effectively. No matter your major, college life will require you to do plenty of writing. This is a huge annoyance to some students, but if that’s you, then you should actually be more  appreciative of the chance to practice. You probably won’t be writing many 10-page papers after graduation, but you will be writing emails, memos, and other messages that require the written word. It’s quite frustrating when, after writing something, it’s ambiguous and incomplete in its message. Also, there are a number of grammar and punctuation rules your expected to follow that college helps to entrench correctly—hopefully you caught that slip-up in the last sentence if you’re paying attention.

Speaking

Speaking in front of large groups isn’t a pleasant activity for most, neither is speaking about yourself during a job interview. Even so, college again is supposed to help foster such communicative skills. There are public speaking classes in most schools, yet even just communicating well on a personal level is a skill worth making sure you’re capable of. This one, at least, isn’t too hard to work on, as, if you talk to anyone, you’re practicing. And while most of us don’t go around starting conversations to boost communicative skills, at any workplace, it’ll be a skill that’s used daily.

Politics

OK, so maybe you didn’t vote in your last local election or maybe you still need to update your registered voting address. And maybe you’re not tuned in to CSPAN daily. Either way, it’s not a bad idea to have a basic knowledge of politics and to maintain it throughout college and afterwards. Knowing and caring about what’s happening in your community, and the whole world for that matter, will never be a bad thing. While so much discussion about politics is synonmous with frustration and anger, no one says you have to get feelings mixed up while trying to make yourself more aware!

Manners

You might learn to say please and thank you while you’re in kindergarten, but now’s the time to make sure you’re putting all of that learning into effect! No, once again you won’t find many classes in college out there on manners and etiquette, but by now, you probably know what’s right and expected. Your parents’ generation might appreciate such old-fashioned etiquette more, yet good manners are never a bad thing to posses, whether you’re grabbing lunch with a professor or on a first date.