Is Academic Curiosity Incompatible with Formal Education?
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Most of the people I have met at university share a trait I find particularly valuable: Inquisitiveness. A desire to comprehend the world and make sense of what could initially seem confounding. If your friendships serve as a mirror to the self, then I’d like to consider myself this way inclined too. But I’ve found that this spark, this drive to learn more about the world, has dwindled the further into university education I have gone. This is not an indictment of UCL’s curriculum, but a comment on the incompatibility of organised education with spontaneous and creative minds.
I am aware that many of my friends and fellow students don’t share this sentiment. However, as many of us final year students approach the end of our degree, we all seem to be increasingly excited to see the back of our university education. Where I may have formerly departed from my classmates in feeling disillusioned with my degree, there seems to be a general consensus that our final essays and examinations are proving more arduous than inspiring. An eagerness to finish doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t lament the end of my university experience, but rather that the prospect of doing something, for the sheer sake of it, rather than to fulfill a quota or marking criteria genuinely excites me.
This is not a groundbreaking realisation. But it prompted me to question whether it is possible to sustain genuine curiosity when forced to complete compulsory tasks. I think agency and inquisitiveness go hand in hand, and that as soon as you are compelled by an external authority to do something, much of the satisfaction of learning deteriorates. After asking a range of UCL students how inspired they have felt by their degree, I started to identify a common thread. Diversity, agency and flexibility are integral to academic engagement. When I have felt myself losing interest in my degree, it has often been because one of these elements has been absent.
Students completing degrees from a range of Human Sciences, to Politics and International Relations, to Ancient Languages, all acknowledged the importance of multidisciplinary and diverse methods of teaching. Most noted that first year made them seriously question their choice of subject. And even more identified the ability to curate their degrees as central to maintaining their love for their subject. The more academic institutions enforce a rigorous and unyielding format of learning, the less students are inclined to engage in it. As a history student, I have considered changing courses due to a lack of temporal and geographic diversity. Being particularly interested in global history, I was shocked at the lack of modules on modern Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Friends of mine have switched courses entirely, feeling they did not cater to their genuine interests. Indeed, I have mainly sustained academic curiosity through interdepartmental modules, craving a new medium and pace of learning. This issue, of a narrow and specialist curriculum, applies also to the broader British education system that demands we limit our scope of academic inquiry as soon as we are able to comprehend its potential breadth. Categorising our skillset at such a young age is fundamentally incompatible with inquisitiveness, which is dependent on an openness and receptiveness to new information.
My personal struggle with university, as a highly academic and competitive environment, is that it doesn’t facilitate intellectual curiosity on a casual or recreational level. It seems harder to show interest in a new area of study without being a master of it, or without the intention of gaining a qualification in it. This may just be the phenomenon of final year at work; often it seems that people are only engaging in a new challenge so they can log it on their Linkedin profile or boost their post university prospects. Regardless, I’m finding it harder (due to both time constraints and lack of opportunity) to attempt a new skill, or engage in a new subject without simultaneously feeling compelled to justify this new endeavour. University constructs an elaborate course of hoop jumping, compelling us to complete one task purely to access a new one. Rather than maintaining the precious atmosphere of academic curiosity, it operates in a transactional way, simply directing students towards the next step in a long career path.
Such an environment does not facilitate intellectual freedom, or even ambition. When we are aware of the quota we must fulfill in order to achieve our degree, or access a job, much of the agency in getting there is removed. Ultimately, academic work resembles more of a job than a choice. And when we are compelled to treat our degree as such, much of the drive or openness to engage in new hobbies disappears. They appear to be an extravagance, an unnecessary use of our time, when we have an essay to think about. But that begs the question, if no longer compelled to complete an assignment in a subject, would we still be compelled to pursue it?
Spontaneity and creativity lies at the heart of genuine curiosity. Paradoxically, success at university can come at the expense of this. Although many approach the end of university with trepidation, I am welcoming it as an opportunity to re-evaluate what truly motivates and inspires me. When stripped of the framework of university, we can provide our own impetus to learn. The loss of a timetable simultaneously grants the return of intellectual agency.