We all know QU 101 was a failure. For the new First Year Seminar 101 course, I want to see material Quinnipiac students can benefit from learning about. For example, how do you tie shoelaces? Where do babies come from? What color belt matches my pants? And finally, do you have a pen I could borrow? That’s the kind of Personal Quest that I would like to embark upon during my four years of college.
The final papers that we were asked to write in QU 101 were based solely on big ideas, which forced us to take the readings we were assigned for homework and use them to support our claims. When I’m given a final paper essay prompt, I want to know exactly how to write it without having to first take the class. I want to see the word “fetch” and respond accordingly by running to get my stick. None of the thinking the university so sadly tried to instate with the QU Seminar series is going to work unless we are baby-fed. I majored in communications so I wouldn’t have to think outside the box, my personal comfort zone. If I struggle when I try to balance equations, then by golly, I want to always be struggling when I try to balance equations.
If I can’t move past the stage of development where I safely comprehend only that which is rooted in reality, then make the courses offered here reflect that I have the cognitive understanding of an eleven-year old. With all this talk about the QU Seminar changes, I’ve started thinking about other areas where the university could improve its effectiveness. For starters, we should be given a formal letter in our last semester at Quinnipiac that tells us exactly what job to get. And we should be given a comprehensive guide on how to go to parties. We want to learn something we can actually use in our lives. So I’ll put my stamp of approval on Personal Quest University, just so long as our guiding questions can be answered with a yes or no.