No matter how gifted the student or dedicated the teacher, however, inevitable roadblocks to learning pop up along the way. A confident student in high school can quickly become a frustrated student in college, when immersed in new surroundings and weighed down with new responsibilities. How well a student responds to these challenges can make the difference between moving successfully to a career or grad school, or floundering, losing interest and perhaps dropping out. The key to success in school and in life, say experts, is learning to learn. While it is a lifelong process, learning to learn often does not begin in earnest until college when, under the guidance of a caring faculty and academic support staff, a student takes stock of a lifetime of accumulated skills and begins putting the pieces together. How are our students learning to learn? We asked veteran faculty members to recommend students who have blossomed during their college years. Here are the stories of eight of those students:
Dan Asbell BRIMFIELD, ILL. ACCOUNTING/BUSINESS A DOUBLE MAJOR IN accounting and business, Dan Asbell ’13 is quite all right with Monmouth College’s distinction as a liberal arts school. The May graduate said that although he specialized in those subjects, what made his time at Monmouth special was the opportunity to get involved in a variety of learning activities. “Coming out of high school, I wasn’t intimidated by Monmouth being a liberal arts school,” Asbell said. “It’s one of the things I’ve really liked about going to college here. I’m not great at any one thing, but my experience here has helped me be decent at a wide range of things.” That applies to multiple academic disciplines, as well as extracurricular activities. One class that had particular impact was “Building Communities,” a Citizenship course taught by Dean David Timmerman. “There were lots of productive conversations and discussions about trying to make a difference,” said Asbell. “I learned a lot from that class.”
monmouth college magazine | winter 2014
Of course, he also learned in his major, and Asbell says he was pleasantly surprised by Monmouth’s accounting curriculum, especially as he reached the upperclass courses. “I thought I would need to learn a plethora of formulas and facts, and that was scary to think about,” recalled Asbell, when asked about deciding to major in accounting during his senior year of high school. “There’s been some of that, of course, but when I became a junior, there were less quizzes and tests, and my performance in class was based more on my ability to figure things out. “What the major has really done is taught me how to learn. I’m confident that whatever job I get into, they’ll have to teach me some elements of the job, but I’ll learn faster thanks to the education I’ve received and what I’ve learned here.” As for what lies ahead, Asbell appreciates the fact that his liberal arts education has not restricted him to one career path. “I could get into business, finance or sales, in addition to accounting,” he said. “I’m open to any of those.” learning to learn
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