Taking a Course, Receiving an Education

I have taken seven courses at New England College related to professional writing: Professional Writing and Rhetoric; Editing in the Professions; Research methods; Media and Public Relations; The New Media; Business and Technical Communication; and Creative Nonfiction. The course titles suggest in broad terms the course content, but they are not definitive. It would still be possible to make inaccurate assumptions about what the courses offer or what a student like myself who has taken the courses might know as a result. So, simply listing the course titles, as a typical transcript does, is insufficient when it comes to assessing my qualifications.


To help prospective students assess their level of interest in a particular course, NEC also provides brief course descriptions. For example, PW 5020: Editing in the Professions, "is designed to introduce students to the concepts and methods of editing professional-quality documents. Students will be exposed to the writing and editing standards and etiquette found in a variety of disciplines, including writing and editing for business, industry, and the government. Comprehensive editing processes will be developed and students will gain the skills needed to work in copyediting."This is better, more informative. Now an evaluator  knows that any student taking the course has been "introduced" or "exposed" to a specific set of skills and concepts. Assuming the student received a good grade in the course, an evaluator might also conclude from a letter or number on a transcript that the student achieved a reasonable level of mastery for those stated skills and concepts.

Beneath these surface indicators—the static descriptions of what would be taught and the standardized grading of what was achieved—lies the magnificently individual experiences of each and every student who took these courses. My classmates and I did not do the same research, write about the same topics, or discover the same voice. Our learning and our work, our feelings about what we did and what we intend to do in the future, were profoundly influenced by our past experiences and unique passions. In each course, the variety of our written work was often so thrilling and unexpected that it was hard to believe we were all studying the same material.

This is why I believe it is imperative to reconsider what we mean when we say someone has "received an education." It is only by examining what has been learned from the learner's perspective that we can truly understand the extent of a student's knowledge. 

As I reflect on my experiences in this Professional Writing program, I keep asking myself, "What did I learn from this course? In what way did I meet or fail to meet the course objectives? What about my own objectives? If I had it to do all over again, what would I have done differently?" This process of reflecting, of considering what I learned and what I was taught, is the main reason I am creating a working portfolio. However, I'm surprised by just how challenging it is to do this! I'm constantly searching my memory, examining the artifacts I've collected, and struggling to develop a detailed, accurate description of my accomplishments. This process of investigating why I did something and what I gained from the experience is much harder than simply explaining what I did for each course. 

I will need to keep this in mind in the future when I ask my son or other students to attempt the same thing I am doing now.