by Joseph Yumang, Saint Mary’s College, California
Editor’s note: It is not uncommon among GLS students to ask the questions which Joseph seeks to answer in this brief essay. Justifying the choice to undertake studies in a program which has no specific career path attached to it, he finds interdisciplinarity is its own reward, and we hope that a open-minded, imaginative employer will realize the benefit of hiring “an inquiring mind.”
[This essay has been abbreviated by the editor. Listen to a recent CBC radio interview with Martha Nussbaum on the humanities.]
Last year, I struggled to clearly identify, both for myself and others, why I enrolled into the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Saint Mary’s College. My pursuit was often met with blank stares from my family and friends asking me probing questions such as: Why do you want to pursue this kind of program? What can you do with this kind of degree? In the midst of fielding their questions, they led me to believe that I made a poor decision. Instead of encouraging my educational pursuit, they insisted that I should to apply to a business program to further my career. Unbeknownst to them, they did not realize that my pursuit of a Liberal Studies degree was an investment in my desire to learn about the world around me from a social perspective. In the context of my paper, the term social perspective is the value system established by social norms. My primary reason of why I decided to pursue a Liberal Studies degree was to enable me to think critically and creatively. In contrast, a business degree teaches an individual a set of rigid business guidelines and investment models that people are expected to adhere to both in the corporate and social sectors. From my vantage point, these ideas limit the opportunities for creative thinking. In retrospect, I could not provide my family and friends an explanation because I had not found my own voice. Although I continued to forge ahead in the program with their doubts clouding my psyche, I found solace in two of Professor Judith Wells’ courses: “The Self” and “The Ways of Knowing.” Both of her classes stressed the importance of self-discovery that taught me the valuable lesson of following one’s passion in life despite having naysayers’ at every turn.
During these two terms, I read twenty books and several excerpts from influential figures throughout history. Based on these readings, Saint Augustine and Lauren Slater both stood out from the other authors because they faced a great deal of adversity in their lives and overcame their personal challenges. As I wrote my midterm papers about their struggles, I started to recognize the value of perseverance, which gave me insight of how to address my own personal obstacles.
Augustine’s book, Confessions, chronicles his personal evolution from a notorious sinner to a Christian saint. Through self-evaluation, he gains clarity about his troubled past and realizes that he constantly sought recognition from his peers. His need for recognition and praise is evident when he claims, “We would hunt for worthless popular distinctions, the applause of an audience, prizes for poetry or quickly fading wreaths in competition. We loved the idle pastimes of the stage and in self-indulgence we were unrestrained” (71). As Augustine reflects on his past experiences, he decides to use these events as life lessons. Subsequently, he uses these events as the foundation for reshaping his identity. After much reflection, he realizes that he needs to establish a greater sense of purpose in his life. After ten years of searching, he finds Christianity and embraces his calling to the church. Through his experiences, Augustine is able to draw strength from his past life lessons of material excess and physical pleasures. As a result of his epiphany, it allows him to become the person he desires to be in life – a well-respected member of his religious sect and in the community at large.
Augustine’s story parallels my own struggles at the beginning of this program. His journey showed me that I needed to overcome my own insecurities as a newly anointed liberal studies student. Initially, I felt like “an outsider” in relationship to my contemporaries. For me, I did not fit the liberal studies model of being a creative artist or devoted employee at a non-profit organization. With an undergraduate degree in Communication, and a position at a financial institution, I came from the opposite side of the social spectrum. In addition, my writing style did not measure up to the interpretive approach emphasized in the program. When I began receiving my graded writing assignments, my essays were dripping with red stains at the seams and contained paragraphs of constructive feedback. After reading Augustine’s writing, I learned that my mistakes were an opportunity to help me evolve as a student. Therefore, instead of tossing my papers away in my messenger bag, I decided to use my past assignments as guides of what not-to-do. Over time, I slowly began to understand that the interpretive approach was an outlet for expressing my views about the text.
After completing Professor Wells’ course entitled “The Self,” I took a series of classes that ultimately lead me to her continuum for self-discovery class known as, “The Ways of Knowing.” Her course helped me summarize the kaleidoscope of concepts and perspectives from my past courses. Her class taught me about epistemology. The course emphasized the idea that epistemology is a central framework that allows people to take their personal experiences and establish their viewpoint to their everyday environment. This idea is illuminated in Lauren Slater’s book, Welcome to My Country, a therapist memoir about her early work with troubled psychiatric patients. With great humor and empathy, she retells her struggles to understand the foreign and frightening mental realms of the schizophrenic, the depressed and the suicidal. After leading several group sessions, Slater decides to take it upon herself to override the false constructs of her past teachings. This notion is verified when she says, “I have to shed some of my own inhibitions and shake myself up. I have been trained, after all, to sit in an office and communicate with my clients through streamlined sentences. Now I must learn to sing” (21).
Her efforts demonstrate that she is breaking the mold of the therapist and patient relationship by keeping them at bay. Instead, she is determined to understand them as individuals. Therefore, she decides to throw out textbook scenarios and think critically in order to reach her patients by learning her patient’s vernacular in order to identify with them.
After reading Slater’s memoir, she motivated me to examine my own epistemology. For most of my academic career, my teachers tested me using a multiple choice scantrons where I selected the correct answer that best answered the question. Based on this testing tool, I possessed the false construct that life is limited to five potential options. Contrary to my acceptance of this fallacy, this is not a blueprint of how to live one’s life. Throughout the course of this program, I have been constantly encouraged to think critically and creatively and came to the conclusion that life has an abundance of options. Ultimately, there is no correct answer in life. Instead, there is only a provisional answer based on one’s “working knowledge” at that given time.
My interpretation of Slater’s book parallels the next phase in this program – the colloquium course. This class is a defining moment in my academic career because I hope to fuse the major themes presented throughout this program and demonstrate my application through my final project. There are two elements that will play an important role in crafting my final project: reflecting on the major themes from past classes and articulating them in our class discussions. First, the reexamination of these prevalent themes will help me build the foundation of my final project. In addition to the themes, I will have the opportunity to collaborate with other students in this course. This kind of collaboration will give me the chance to hear different interpretations that will motivate students, like me, to further reflect on the text.
Overall, I struggled to understand the foreign concepts from interpretive approach to a provisional answer at the beginning of this program, but I have been determined to learn about this interdisciplinary approach. Like Augustine and Slater, I tried to place my best foot forward, but I often stumbled and made mistakes. After much reflection, I realize that I should be grateful for making these errors because it gave me an opportunity to learn and grow as individual. As a result, I have been able to find my voice and express my passion about liberal studies, which is a moment worth defining in my life.
WORKS CITED
Augustine, Aurelius. Confessions. Trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin. New York: Penguin Books, 1961.
Slater, Lauren. Welcome to My Country. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.
