Don’t get me wrong, I love Barnard. It is a wonderfully diverse whirlpool of independent thought, motivation, and intellect. I have met truly exceptional women here, and every day I find a new role model whose actions I aspire to emulate … or I just Facebook stalk them. I adore the small, intimate nature of the classes, the opportunities to be active on campus and around New York, and the responsibilities bestowed upon all students that encourage us to mature. I have gained experience, independence, and courage from Barnard. But I have also gained an abrasively blatant enemy: the Nine Ways of Knowing.
I know what you’re thinking—hey, you were the one who decided to go to the liberal arts college! You committed yourself to the goal of being a well-rounded undergraduate by taking classes in an array of subjects. And I do appreciate the goals of the Nine Ways of Knowing—something surprisingly beautiful occurs when you find yourself drawing parallels among Spanish poetry meter, physics laws, and a paper you’re writing for Legacy of the Mediterranean. Taking a wide array of classes is a great experience, but there’s no time for that here! A driven Barnard student usually has, in addition to approximately 15 credits of courses per semester, commitments ranging from campus clubs, internships, performance rehearsals, and sports practices. When you’re trying to have the “college experience”—whatever that might mean for you—it’s hard to appreciate the purpose of the Nine Ways of Knowing. Instead, you find yourself confronted with an arch-nemesis. And then you begin to battle.
No, this enemy does not wear a black helmet and speak with an asthmatic drone, nor does it possess an age-old power harbored in pieces of jewelry dispersed across Middle Earth. This nemesis will rear its ugly head just as you finish up a requirement toward your major, begin to plan for study abroad, or apply for a time-consuming internship. You want to double major in Spanish and political science? Great! Just don’t forget that, in addition to interning at the mayor’s office and fulfilling all those requirements, you have to take two semesters of a lab science! You want to study abroad for a year? Well, make sure you take a quantitative reasoning course before then, unless you want to be the only senior in a Calculus I class, pretending to be interested while thinking about how you could be volunteering, exercising, doing the readings for a seminar, applying to law school, getting a job ... the list goes on.
I personally battle this demon on almost a daily basis. With an intended major in two languages, a three-day-a-week internship, countless club and volunteer opportunities, and a desire to study abroad for the entirety of my junior year, I am acutely aware of how time is running out. My high school did not offer Advanced Placement courses, so I am starting from scratch and trying to do it all. That’s right, halfway through my third semester of college—arguably still the honeymoon stage of these four years—I’m already sprinting to keep up, developing agita over whether or not I will get into the psych lottery. Is that the real “college experience”? I am now realizing that some courses I naively signed up for as a first-year because they sounded “interesting” were a waste. Were those precious credits I should have been wise enough to ration toward the Nine Ways of Knowing? Is there such a thing as a waste in one’s college experience? Are we, by enforcing the Nine Ways of Knowing, forcing students to view valuable class time as such? I’m too young to be this jaded!
Wouldn’t it be great if I could try and fulfill some of the Nine Ways of Knowing while abroad? Yes. Would I appreciate the establishment of a resource whose sole purpose was to aid students in the pursuit of fulfilling the Nine Ways of Knowing? Absolutely. Deans are busy, advisors are knowledgeable but admittedly far from all-knowing, and it becomes difficult for a student to keep up in an environment like Barnard’s.
For now, I simply rejoice in my successes and remain in denial about the sands of time slipping through my fingers like water through a sieve. Fortunately, I love learning and I love this school, so I am not as bitter about the whole ordeal as I may sound, but a word to the wise: the tour guides are lying. Most students do not fulfill all of requirements within the first few semesters. I just hope the stress presented by the Nine Ways of Knowing can be alleviated so that students do not find themselves viewing classes as obligations rather than privileges. This, I fear, is a reality we are quickly approaching.
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