Debunking myths: Sometimes small is better, say four college students

Students from smaller liberal arts colleges insist they had better discussions.

KARACHI: For students working hard to get into Ivy League colleges, these four students insist that smaller liberal arts schools are better.

Sadia Khatri, Mustafa Tawab, Farah Muhammad and Ali Hassan got together at The Second Floor cafe on Monday evening to debunk myths about the standard of education at smaller liberal arts schools.

Inquiry, imagination and empathy are the three things that I felt my college taught me, said the moderator Mariam Sabri, an international relations major from Mt Holyoke. She and the panellists felt that they received greater attention from their teachers due to smaller student-to-teacher ratio. “I hated the sciences but I discovered astronomy in college and loved it,” said Sabri.

Muhammad added that she was not very sporty in school. But at her college, she was involved in a number of sports events.  “O’ and A’ levels are a very frustrating experience for most Pakistani students as you are only asked to reproduce what you rote learn and critical thinking is not really required,” admitted Khatri, a third year at Mt Holyoke. “But the very first day in college, my professor asked me - Tell me what you think - and it changed my life.”

Khatri had initially planned on transferring out to a bigger college but was convinced otherwise due to the “discussions in class rooms, dorms and dining halls at Holyoke”, which had a phenomenal impact on her.

The students pointed out that because of the smaller student-to-teacher ratio, teachers can afford to encourage and oversee students in their attempt to become self-regulating and independent. “We go and give exams in a room with no cameras and invigilators,” said Khatri.

“I am sure some students might cheat, but for most of us, it is an intense process of self-reflection making us question if we can, or cannot be trusted.”

Ali Hassan, who studied in Berea College and in CUNY, explained that he preferred the former because it allowed him to apply what he learnt to his career. “At Berea, a small college in the middle of nowhere, I was doing actual research and had to think in a million different directions,” he explained. “At CUNY, I was just one of the many.”

After the talk, a representative from ‘Possibilities Pakistan’ - an organisation providing free counselling services to students also spoke about his organisation. “We made a lot of mistakes in our time because we didn’t have good advisers,” he explained. “We want to make sure that other students don’t make the same mistakes.”

The one shortcoming of the session was the absence of representatives from the big leagues. This debate - the experience of studying in a smaller college versus a big university - would have been more meaningful if another panel of students from the Ivy leagues had been invited to present their end of the argument.

At one point, one of the panellists claimed that, “I have friends in UPenn [University of Pennsylvania] and if you want to start thinking about what job you will get from your very first day in college, you should go there.” This would have surely received a strong backlash had a UPenn student been part of the event.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2013.