A Lesson vs. an Experience

I had to give a speech for a fundraiser for Engineers Without Borders the other day on "engagement" and what that means. It's a bit unrelated to what we are talking about now, except Dr. Sexson tells us that everything is related........anyway I thought I'd share it with you all since my primary idea for the speech came from a quote of Dr. Sexson about the difference between a lesson and an experience. 

So the theme for this year’s Jubilee is the four E’s: Engineering, Empowerment, Education, and Engagement. I want to look at that last word: Engagement. Over the past years of my involvement, I’ve given countless presentations and talked about who we are, what we do, and how we do it, but I haven’t talked much at all about how this group affects us students. I think it’s a topic that’s usually overlooked, but extremely important to bring up. And this topic is not small by any means, two members of EWB actually did their Honors Senior Thesis on the topic of engagement, but I’d at least like to give you all a little food for thought.

What is the difference between a lesson and an experience? This is a question Dr. Michael Sexson asked us in the seminar I am taking from him. A lesson, he said, ends; it closes. But an experience never ends. This is exactly what has and is happening to students in EWB-MSU. Their experience with this club is never ending, and often changes how they view the world.

On Wednesday night, I started thinking about what I might say to you all. I got a little stuck, as usual when I try to write something, so I sent out an email to about 15 club members. Keep in mind this was about 9’olock at night. And within two hours several people had responded with fantastic perspectives. Now first of all, this shows the kind of support network that is created within this organization or perhaps that we spend too much time checking emails….) but it also demonstrates the wide variety of experiences members of EWB commence in. They were all of such quality; I’d like to share some with you.

One member said traveling with EWB opened his eyes to how the world can be enormous and intimate at the same time. There are so many places, each different and unique in so many ways, but everywhere you go you can find a human element that is fundamentally the same, which allows you to connect with people a world apart.

Another member told of how the EWB culture grows leaders by pushing people to take on more than they might be able to do, letting them do what they can, and being there to support them when things don’t quite go as planned. It is not often college students get the opportunity to take on the responsibility that we do, and interact in an environment much beyond our years. It is the support network that allows students to succeed at this, or at least the best chance to do so.

Another member described the joy she gets out of watching the moment with it just clicks for students. They go from being unsure of themselves and their ability to contribute good ideas, to facilitating meetings, making sure their voice is heard, and mending mistakes members before them have made.

One member touched on the fact that EWB is not a group of people that are satisfied with their idea of doing “good” for another person. Our members are constantly trying to figure out the good that is best for something they know nothing about. This allows us to be sensitive to the impact culture has on everyone’s outlook. The most important lesson to gain is to realize that our idea of “better” in not right for everyone, and that we should strive to make someone else’s idea of “better” a reality.

My experience has been a combination of every one of these. EWB has given me perspective on life and appreciation for the value of education, culture, and community, in every sense. EWB-MSU is not just an organization, we are a family. Some of my best friends I have made because of my involvement in this group. And I am constantly surprised by our ability to solve the problems put before us, both in the community in Kenya and here in the states. I’ve found myself often putting my work with EWB before my schoolwork, which has its downsides, but the benefits I’ve received go beyond all my expectations. This is what an engagement experience at EWB gives students. As one member puts it: EWB is an acceleration of the lifelong process of gaining a view of the forest. Previous to EWB, the focus was on a few trees and shrubs. 

Ronald Omyonga Speaks About MSU and Engineers Without Borders

Inspiration

It startled me to read in Annie Dillard's For the Time Being:

""Throughout my whole life," he noted later, "during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within.""

After reading this passage, I remember a smile beginning to pull at the edges of my mouth. I think it startled me so much because it reminded me that yes, we are all a part of this huge universe and it is hard as an individual to believe we have an affect on it, but at the same time the world can have a huge affect on us. This quote reminded me to slow down, take a look around me, and get inspired.

I had the opportunity to speak with an extremely inspirational man this weekend as a result of the Engineers Without Borders Mountain Region Conference. This man from Kenya goes by the name Ronald Omyonga, and he is the person responsible for initiating the project that EWB-MSU has now worked on for a decade in Western Kenya. Hearing him tell his story of how he moved from poor, rural villager raised by a single mother to attending one of the best high schools in the nation to going to college to become an architect and now working for Habitat For Humanity spoke volumes. I kept thinking, now here is a man whom the fire of the world is blazing within.

Here is his story: Ronald was one of four boys, raised in a village in Western Kenya called Khwisero. It is very rural; most of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. They are mostly subsistence farmers, and boys inherit property from their father so they may carry on farming the land. However, Ronald grew up without a father, so his mother told him over and over again that "his book was his land and his pencil his jembe." A jembe is a Kenyan hoe. His mother somehow always made sure he had paper and a pencil and something in his stomach to eat before going to school. So Ronald worked extremely hard, never wanting to disappoint his mother and scored the highest marks in the district, earning him an invitation to a top high school in the capital city of Nairobi. He was no longer the top student, and that humbled him, but he kept studying hard and placed into the architectural school at the University of Nairobi. He finished his degree and when he went back home to see his friends he used to play with, he realized he could not even relate to them anymore; they didn't even understand what an architect was (there is no word for architect in the tribal language). It was at that point Ronald realized the importance and power of education. That's when he sent in the proposal to Engineers Without Borders USA to start a project in his home village. He wanted everyone, girls and boys included, to have the same opportunity he did without obstacles like dirty water and inadequate sanitation to stand in their way. After initiating the EWB-MSU project, Ronald continued to do aid work while working as an architect, and has been very successful. He is the core of EWB-MSU and the most incredible human being I have ever met.

Sorry for the aside, but I wanted you all to have the background story. I can't do his story justice, but I can tell you why he is an inspiration to me, and why I think he has the worlds fire within himself. When I first met him in Nairobi, Kenya, the first thing he said to me was something along the lines of, "welcome, thank you for the great work you are doing," without even knowing my name or my story. How many people do you know that can do that? He appreciates people, and most of all the people that have allowed him to LEARN. He thinks the world has been opened up to him because of his education, and this is how the fire inside him was ignited. It continues to burn, and I can tell. When he spoke at his keynote speech last Sunday, he had the audience crying and laughing at the same time as he lit a fire inside each person in that room, if only for one hour.

Think back to the times you have been inspired. Whether it is by a person, a place, an idea, does it not feel like at that moment, the world is on fire around you and you are enveloping that flame until it burns within you too? Like the world has something to offer you, and you just keep soaking it all in? For Ronald, education lit that fire, what will light it for you? The world itself is inspiring, we just have to choose to notice it, and let the fire spread within us.

I'm Possessed

I think I have become possessed by this class.....actually I think this class has possessed me. I've been trying to formulate this post for the longest time, but in class today I finally just decided what the heck, I'll write it anyway, even if its fairly jumbled. Dr. Sexson did say this blog was supposed to be like a journal, so here is me journaling.

What I mean when I said I have become possessed by this class is that the discussions we have and the points that are brought up keep reoccurring in my daily life. Coincidences, so to speak, keep happening. And it's quite honestly freaking me out! Yet at the same time, very "awesome." Here is a list of the coincidences I've had.

1. After class one day, I talked to Dr. Sexson and he asked if the light bulbs were beginning to go off in my head, and I said that I think they're getting there, they are more flickering right now though. Immediately afterward I went to the bathroom, and as you all know, the light in Quad F's bathroom flickers before it comes on. Coincidence........?

2. An entire class period was dedicated to the "Art of Attention" and how we are always getting distracted. In another class of mine (Construction Practice, sounds exciting I know), the professor talked about how we need to "listen" instead of just "hear." Coincidence.........?

3. This is more just hilarious to me: we talked about Schrodinger's cat, and literally my favorite television show has a scene about Schrodinger's cat that explains it perfectly: (bear with it, the point is made at the end)

4. Superposition. We looked at this topic from a literally standpoint. Well, I'm an engineer, but it just so happens that this past Monday, we were talking about loading on beams and support conditions, and in engineering superposition can be used as a tool to solve really complex problems by simplifying the problem: breaking the problem into different parts, solving these parts, then adding them back together. Coincidence.....?

5. Yesterday, I was having a discussion with someone very "special" to me about "everyone being special." And he also believes no one is "special," and that pulled at me. Then today in class we have the exact same discussion. I liked the way Brooke put it, because it seems awful to say we aren't special, that we're just this tiny little piece of a massive puzzle, but that doesn't have to be frightening. It can be humbling and invigorating. Anyway......coincidence.........?

So all of this has been going on around me, and the best part of it I think is that I've paid ATTENTION to it. I have begun to notice the parallels between all my classes, and with my life in general. The past few class periods, I have really paid ATTENTION. Meanwhile, I have been having this inner battle with myself about several different things. What is important in my life? Who is important? Is what I'm studying really what I am going to do for the rest of my life? How am I supposed to know? When Dr. Sexson said today that life is just smoke and mirrors, I knew exactly what he meant. I feel like I'm in a giant room with walls of mirrors, reflecting myself back at me, as if saying, "well don't look at us, we don't have any answers for you." And every other minute a giant puff of smoke fills the room and makes me blind to everything, including myself.

Remember how at the beginning of the class I said I've never been able to remember a dream I've had? Well that was true, until now. I had a dream the other night, and it is a dream I know I've had before, but I remembered it into the next day, and wrote it down! It wasn't as clear, but I remembered to main parts. It went something like this: I am back all of a sudden playing soccer for my old high school coach and I am about to take a corner kick, or maybe a goal kick, I can't remember. Anyway, I take the three or four steps back, pause, and am about to run forward and strike the ball when all of a sudden I fall down on my back and cannot move. It is like my whole body is paralyzed, I can still move my eyes and think, but nothing of my body moves. I can feel the eyes staring at me, and I am embarrassed, confused, hurt; so many emotions run through me........I remember having this happen to me in dreams before, maybe that's why I remembered it this time. But why do I keep having this dream that results in me lying helpless? I've been trying to connect this dream to my life, and cannot figure it out. Is it because this is my deepest fear: to be helpless and unable to move, to be a bystander of my own life? I have no idea. Yet, maybe there is more to this dream, another room in my mind that I have just barely opened the door to. Or perhaps there are no answers, because to find an answer would be to kill the idea. If that is the case, I'm happy I have no answers.

On the Question of Quality

When I sat down to write about the idea of "quality," I was at first stumped. What is quality? I could give you a dictionary definition, or better yet, the etymology of the word (it is Latin in origin, if you were wondering, originating from the word "qualis" ) but that probably wouldn't do you very much good. So I started wandering. After reading Pirsig's Wikipedia article, the one quote that stood out to me was "Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things..."  (Chapter 29 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). Then I looked at my notes from in class, and what I had written down was literally: Quality: the idea that we do not "see" it, but "experience" it. This is how I would like to look at quality: 

I reflect back to when I was looking at colleges my junior year of high school. I was essentially examining the "quality" of the university. How did I do that? By looking at "qualities" such as what the student to professor ratio was, what kinds of opportunities there were for research as undergraduates, how did employers view the graduates from the program, what kind of scholarships did the school offer, how the program I was interested in ranked nationally, and the list went on. Before I even set foot onto the university campus, I'd judged the school for its "quality." But are these measurable "qualities" superficial or can they be used as a measurement to view "quality." 

Now after attending the university for the past few years, my perception of how I view its "quality" has drastically changed. I do not mean to say the "qualities" listed above do not matter, but they are perhaps not the most important. They are what I would deem the surface of the matter, and we must dive deeper. I remember talking to many of my friends back home who were going to a "fancy" school out of state, and they made it sound like I was "settling" by going to Montana State University. Does a school have more "quality" because it has a big name like Northwestern?

I am a true believer in the phrase, "the experience is what you make of it." Like Brady said in his blog, you can't judge a math student for his quality of writing, so how can you? I would say we look at the quality of a student based on their influence on society as a whole. Now this is a broad and nebulous statement I know, but isn't that what its all about? When a graduating student applies for scholarships for graduate school, what do those scholarships generally look at? They look at how the student has influenced the society around them, and if the student has that potential for the future. Making a jump to the professors, we could say the same about them. When a professor is getting tenured, many universities look at how that professor is active in the community around them, i.e. how they influence the people around them. Based on this, their "quality" is judged from the experiences they've had and make themselves. I think this is what "quality" is all about: the experience. You don't "see" quality, but "experience" it.