Xavier Flory | Is specialization the problem?

In an article published several years ago in The Washington Post, former congresswoman and Rhodes Scholar Heather Wilson argued that increased academic specialization has led to college students who are “less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why.”

I agree with her about the problem. At Penn, I am continually impressed with the accomplishments of my fellow students but often underwhelmed by their ability to justify why those accomplishments and causes are important. But having grown up in the system she is criticizing, I disagree with her diagnosis of where it comes from.

First, academic specialization may not be to blame for students who are unable to grapple with simple questions about the world and the problems it faces. Plenty of students with broad academic backgrounds are just as incapable of discussing why history is important and how their studies relate to the problems of the world.

On the other hand, many very specialized people are both broad and deep thinkers. Medical education is very specialized, and yet at my last doctor’s appointment, my physician, one year out of her residency, noticed I was reading Shklovsky’s “Zoo, or Letters Not About Love,” and proceeded to explain to me why Russian formalism wasn’t just intellectual masturbation (I still think it is.)

My professors here at Penn, most of whom have been researching in their sub-field for decades, are quick to engage in conversations about the problems of today, politics and subjects completely foreign to their specialty. Burrowing into obscure topics seems to have kept their minds nimble and curious rather than one-tracked and inflexible.

The problem — students who know a lot, but not why it matters and how to apply it to the problems of the world — is mainly the product of increased competition. As a result of this, successful students are busier than ever before, have less time to think and are more focused on achieving than on questioning why a pursuit matters.

It begins with the effect that the college admissions process has had on secondary education. High schools are often more about getting into college than getting an education. College counselors and SAT prep — both of which were marginal several decades ago — are now a central part of school. In this light, it is no wonder that education is becoming a series of steps on the ladder towards a job rather than a chance to explore, understand and question the world.

Alas, our education system encourages qualities more associated with Hercules than Socrates. Determination and discipline are the qualities that allow students to excel in academics and extracurricular activities simultaneously and impress admission officers. Curiosity — a key quality to those who really wish to think outside the box and change the world — can often be harmful for getting into college, especially if it leads people to change from band to baseball in the middle of junior year or to read instead of doing homework.

Thus, although the range of subjects in high school may be wide, the focus — getting into college — is incredibly narrow, and many kids inevitably develop tunnel vision. The question changes from “How is this pertinent to the world and its problems?” to “How does this add to my application?”

The brightest and most disciplined of these students go on to excel in college, but the narrow way of thinking does not disappear. Excelling both inside and outside the classroom requires even more focus in college than it did in high school. Focus does not wonder, and it discards everything that is irrelevant to the goal.

Most of us don’t come into college knowing what the next step is, but most do know the way to reach it: high grades and impressive extracurricular activities.

Thus, we don’t need wonder in order to succeed. We don’t ask why we study something, or how it relates to the world, because we’ve been taught that focus, not curiosity, is the key to success.

Many medical schools have already reacted against the academic narrowness of students by encouraging applicants to major in something other than the sciences. But if we are to fully fix the problem and become more thoughtful and worldly scholars, then we must fix the entire paradigm of our high school and college education system.

Xavier Flory is a College senior from Nokesville, Va. His email address is xflory@sas.upenn.edu. Follow him @FloryXavier. “The Gadfly” appears every other Monday.

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