Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds

Reviewed by Mary W. Gray

Richard J. Light.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001

It is a pleasure these days to find a book about teaching and learning that makes no reference to technology and does not suggest that face-to-face contact with students is best avoided in favor of some version of distance learning. Richard Light’s Making the Most of College uses the words of students themselves to advise other students, faculty, and administrators how to "make the most of college." Much of what is said is familiar to experienced faculty members—small classes, study groups, one-on-one contacts for research projects, student participation in and outside of the classroom help students learn. What is new is that many of the insights are backed up by in-depth interviews with some 1,600 students, many at Harvard University, but some from institutions of all types.

The essence of Light’s message to students and faculty is that what students need is to make links between the academic and the personal, but above all, they need to get involved. For an undergraduate contemplating medical school, such a link could be experience working in a hospital; for a political science student, it could be organizing a renovation effort for a housing project, only to see it fail through union opposition. Light argues that engaging in extracurricular activities can lead to better academic performance and a more satisfactory college experience even if the activities are notconnected to the student’s academic interests. He cites the experience of a shy Pacific Islander who became the drum carrier (a nonplaying role) in the Harvard band, and points out that there are 168 hours in a week, none of which needs to be devoted to being a couch potato. But there are limits to how much time can be devoted to nonacademic pursuits, as he acknowledges in reference to intercollegiate athletes. Moreover, his subject population appears to consist almost entirely of students going directly from high school to full-time collegiate study. Not for him the single mother balancing a full-time job, child care, and a near full-time academic load!

The immediate reaction to what Light says is to assume that what works in the rarified atmosphere of Harvard may have little universal relevance. He repeats, more often than necessary, that the advice given by the students he interviewed has broad application in higher education. That is true of much of what they say, but the fact remains that for sheer ability and commitment to intellectual exploration, most students are not equal to those with whom Light has worked most closely. And most faculty do not have as much time as they would like to put into practice his proposed means of helping students make the most of their time at their institutions. For example, he speaks of meeting one on one with students at the beginning of each year to explore in depth their backgrounds and aspirations. But what if twenty or more students were depending on him each term for advice and guidance? And what about the faculty member who has two or three classes of more than a hundred students each semester, plus maybe, just maybe, the treasured small seminar so productive for student learning? And who at the same time must publish or perish?

These reservations aside, much can be learned from what students tell us and from what Light passes on from master teachers. For example, many faculty have found the one-minute essay useful. For those who may not have encountered the technique, it involves asking students to answer three questions anonymously at the end of each class session: what is the big point, the main idea, that you learned in class today? What is the main unanswered question you leave class with today? What is the muddiest point?

Light’s advice on teaching from an interdisciplinary perspective in a discipline-based course is especially welcome in an era in which there is much talk of interdisciplinary study but also much difficulty in negotiating its introduction with administrations obsessed with "revenue-centered management" or other accounting devices. He also dispels some myths about students’ attitudes to the study of science and languages, providing guidance along the way regarding how to make courses in these areas more enriching.

Light devotes several chapters to the hot topic of diversity—what does it mean, what does it accomplish? Two features of his approach are new. First, he concentrates not on diversity itself, but on what students from a variety of different backgrounds can bring to the study of literature, music, history, politics, or science. Second, he discusses religious diversity, a topic somewhat neglected in conventional discourse. Light’s advice to administrators concentrates heavily on diversity, to the neglect of some issues that are actually much more difficult to resolve. For example, given the limited resources that most institutions have, how can students be assured of the small seminars and personal attention that suit them best?

Light includes an appendix on the issue of assessment. The surveys reported in the book grew out of an attempt to examine the conditions under which students learn best, both in and outside of classrooms. Light wanted to determine how professors, advisers, staff members, and students could do their work better in order to facilitate student learning. His idea was to gather information that would help guide educational policy decisions; hence, the advice to faculty to engage with students more closely, to students to be active participants in learning in and outside the classroom, and to administrators to facilitate diversity.

Light’s approach seems more worthwhile than the usual assessment procedures that confine themselves to asking what students know. The heart of the advice he gives to students who want to make the most of college is something easy to aspire to, but hard to achieve: get to know one faculty member a year reasonably well. Implicit in this advice is a message to faculty: get to know as many students as you can reasonably well.

Mary Gray is professor of mathematics and statistics at American University.

 Printer-Friendly Page