Timely Graduation

When I attended BYU, there was a great concern over something called “timely graduation”. What does that mean? Well, that it was taking too long for students to graduate. The school had a way of identifying students who were taking too long and inviting them to come to one-on-one meetings with an advisor to review what could be done. (In other words, “inspiring” them to hurry up)

I dare say a good number of people change their majors at least once while they are in college, hence the reason it took longer. My wife switched. Several of my friends and family member switched. I switched as well.

I won a scholarship for my work in electronics while I was in High School. I took a year of classes at a 2 year college in electrical engineering. What did I discover? I didn’t enjoy it.
I went on my LDS mission and when I came back, I decided to finish my Associates Degree and then transfer to BYU.

When I started attending BYU, I chose the Communications—Broadcasting with an emphasis on Production. Why? When I was in High School, I used my electronics knowledge to become one of the engineers at our radio station, KOHS. While doing that, I got to learn how to edit music, promos and the like—and I thought it was fun.

However, to get into the program at BYU, I was required to take a number of pre-requisites before I could even start to take the classes I wanted to take. By this point in time, considering the credits I had earned at the other school, I was a Junior before I was even in the program.

In addition, we were required to take a 0 credit class 4 times while in school. It was a 1 hour a week lecture where we got graded for showing up. It was only offered during the fall and winter, so that was a minimum of 2 years right there you would have to attend the school.

After I got accepted into the program, we, as students, were told that the number of credits required for us to graduate with our degree was too high and couldn’t realistically be done in 4 years. Aside from all the communications classes, we were also required to take a boat load of English classes. I had to take so many, in fact, that I realized I only needed to take an additional 2 English classes to get my minor—which I did.
How did the school resolve the issue of too many credit hours being required? Simple. They took all of the communication classes and reduced the number of credit hours they were worth by 1. In other words, the number of classes didn’t change—just how many credits they were worth.

And the biggest irony of all? The one class I spent the most time and effort on was one of my required directing classes. I had to direct several programs, including an interview, a dramatic scene, a musical number and a few others. In fact, I spent more time on that one class than all of my other classes combined for that semester. Guess how many credits it was worth? That’s right: 1.

The new math

There is that old joke that Algebra could one day save your life. With my imagination, as a student I'd daydream of a situation where a bomb was going to blow up unless I solved this complex equation using all sorts of letters and symbols. How that would keep a bomb from blowing up, I'm not sure. The honest fact is that unless you use something on a regular basis, you tend to forget it. Some may say this is a perfect argument for not getting an education--that most things you learn, you won't use. I'll say that is somewhat of a valid point, with one major exception: 

Learning helps you learn to learn.

Granted, that may seem like the most obvious statement in the world. But stuff is changing around us so much, we are constantly having to learn new things.

At BYU, I learned how to direct TV programs. At the time, we used the latest technology. We had this big video switcher that looked like the control board on the Death Star.

It had lots of buttons and levers and dials and such. Over time, technology change--things became more computer based. This last summer, we went back to Utah for a visit. One place we stopped by was BYU. We found the old studio where I spent so many hours. It was stripped bare. I have no doubt that all that equipment was replaced by the newest technology somewhere else on campus.

So, what was the point of me learning something that would change? Well, for starters, the concepts behind directing haven't really changed. The correct video still needs to be played at the right moment. The anchors need to know which camera to look at and when. The director needs the ability to multitask while several people are talking to him or her at the same time. In other words, the human elements haven't changed.

But in addition, learning how all that equipment worked helped me develop the strategies and habits to be able to become proficient at something new. When the technology changed, I'd have to learn how to use it, but, I had already developed the skills on how to learn.

To me, that is the single biggest thing someone can learn from getting an education--on any level.
Right now, I'm learning how to be a better writer. It's not all about spelling, (though in my third book I used the word 'alter' instead of 'altar' to describe an item in a church--thank goodness it is still in the editing stages!) but it is also about pacing, character development, setting, point of view, and the list goes on and on. It may sound strange, but a lot of the skills I learned in becoming a TV director, I'm using now as I learn to become a better writer.

Back to the whole point of learning math that may save your life one day. My oldest daughter (who is freakin' awesome by-the-way) is a Freshman in High School this year. She brought home her first math homework a few days ago. There was one question that they hadn't gone over in class, and she wasn't sure how to do it. She asked for my help. The question was this: 7 people meet and shake hands, how many handshakes occur? Also, what is the formula for number of handshakes if the number of people is "n"?

I was stupefied. I seriously sat there for an hour trying to figure it out. No luck. I finally posted the question on Facebook. The answer? nCr = n! / (r! * (n - r)!) Where "n" is the number of people, "r" is the number of people required to do a handshake (in this case "2") and the big letter "C" there means constant or something else that makes it really confusing.

What the heck is "n!"? I must have learned that at some point in time, but heck if I remember--because I don't use it. I told my daughter to see what answer the teacher wanted once they went over the assignment. The answer? "Oh! I didn't expect any of you to get the answer because I haven't taught you how to do it yet."