Question to make students think

College life is often a “sheltered life” as most students have not faced the reality of “the real world”, especially for those who are still being taken care of by their parents. For many years I have struggled with questions of how to prepare them to embark on life in “the real world” as the world outside is more challenging than what they have experienced in the classrooms. I have asked myself: “How do I let them realize that a college degree is not a guarantee for job? How do I teach them about career planning? How do I motivate them to be self-sufficient and independent? How do I get them to be more responsible for themselves, for their family, and for the society? How do I get them to read more and open their minds to the vast majority of materials available? Few years ago, I came up with a special assignment to my fourth-year students to get them to think about something that they may not yet consider.

Every week I ask each of them to write a one page answer to a simple question. These questions are not related to the class materials so they do not need to read anything to get the answer. There is no grade for it but I will read all of them and select a few to present their answers for class discussion. In the beginning, students are not happy of this extra work and they complain of too much works but eventually many like it as it helps them to broaden their knowledge, especially when I ask them to present their answers to the class which always leads to more discussions.

The typical questions are: “Who is your most admired person in the industry? What he or she does and why?” “If you can meet one successful person, what question would you like to ask, and why?”, “What will you miss most about this university or this class when you graduate and why?”, “What thing you wish that you would do when you enter college but did not do?”, “What advice do you wish you paid more attention to when you enter college and why?” “If you can change just one thing today, what would you do?”, “If you can describe yourself to a person that you never met before in just two minutes, what would you say?” “If you win a lottery, what would you do and why?” “If you can read just four books before you die, which are they and why?”, “If you can travel oversea for one year, which country would you like to go and why?” etc.

These questions are mostly random thought but they often lead to serious discussion among students since there is no “right or wrong” answer and everybody has their own opinion or ideas. Before the last week of class, I gave them the last assignment: To write a one page description based on their interview of five college graduates who have not found a job yet as well as five college graduates who got jobs relate to their fields of study with this question: “If you can do just one thing again, what would you do and why?”

I have been doing this for the past seven years and most students told me that they liked these discussions where they shared their answers in class which always led to more discussions and they always made them think deeply. Since then, several graduates told me that they remembered these discussions vividly as they were working in the industry as they helped them to look forward to their future and it was always fun.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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