"We need fewer drifting straws on the stream of American business, and more discontented thinkers"
(Wes Davis, "The 'Learning Knights' of Bell Telephone")
This past week, I have had to read quite a few articles on tips for how to get the most out of my college education. Each story had a relatable quality, but one in particular stuck out the most in my memory. This article was less of a how to and more of a shared experience of knowledge.
"The 'Learning Knights' of Bell Telephone" is a New York Times piece written by Wes Davis which describes the struggle and triumph faced by some promising young executives at the Bell Telephone company fifty-nine years ago. These young men were exemplary at their current job positions, but the author writes that many of them had "technical backgrounds, gained at engineering schools or on the job, and quite a few had no college education at all." W. D. Gillen, the president of Bell Telephone, pondered whether or not these men would ever be capable of independent, critical thinking as opposed to simply following orders.
Gillen turned to the University of Pennsylvania with his concerns and assisted in organizing a program which the company called the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives. Davis explained that this program would give the executives, "in a 10-month immersion program on the Penn campus, what amounted to a complete liberal arts education." Now, this revelation honestly captured my attention because I plan on double majoring in Special Education and Liberal Arts. Naturally, I was interested in seeing how this particular level of education would transform the thinking of those young men. Like myself, they had a very basic education up to that point, and this liberal arts program would help augment their knowledge and learning capabilities.
The results produced from experiencing the trips, guest lectures, and difficult reading assignments, (including the novel Ulysses by James Joyce which had a reputation for its complexity), were overwhelmingly positive for the engineers turned scholars. The article states that at the completion of the course, "an anonymous questionnaire was circulated among the Bell students; their answers revealed that they were reading more widely than they had before...and they were more curious about the world around them." This story is inspiring to a student like me because I have struggled all my life to be an above average student and to expand my intelligence. These ambitious young men were living proof that you can overcome adversity, and that it is never too late to further your education. If they could blossom into educated, well-rounded individuals after years of minimal schooling and improve their reading abilities that drastically, I can achieve my goals as well.
At times we students all get frustrated with either a strenuous work load, challenging course material, or various other hurdles in our path to academic excellence. However, these men have proven that hard work, and open-mind, and a willingness to push onward can help you succeed despite all odds. These are skills that everyone should practice not only in school work, but they should be exercised in all areas of life. The quote at the very top of this blog post resonates with me deeply. If we were all simply straws drifting down the stream, who will develop new ideas or carve new paths? If we were all the same, life would be stagnant. Everyone chooses to either be a leader or a follower in every situation, and a world with no leaders or discontented thinkers could never prosper.
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