With over 20,000 undergraduate students, it is very easy for one to get “lost in the crowd.” Walking through the Diag, students often see unfamiliar faces, an occurrence quite different from the typical high school experience. The University of Michigan prides itself on the sense of community present among students. Community on this campus is built in a number of ways, with student activism and involvement in different organizations playing a major role. There are over 1,200 active student groups on this campus, each with a unique focus and mission statement. The excuse for student complacency can no longer be, “I couldn’t find anything that interested me.”

I decided to get involved on campus not to boost my resume, or to make my encouraging mother proud, but rather to satisfy my intrinsic needs. College is a unique experience for most in its requirement of self-motivation. College is only four years long, and it is what you make of it. No one is peering over my shoulder telling me what to do or how to make my decisions. To me, simply attending class and coming straight home was not the way I wanted to remember my college experience. I needed to become a part of something that was greater than myself. Solely attending classes didn’t offer me that “something;” I wanted to make my mark on the University. Then I found LSA Student Government.

My involvement as President of LSA Student Government is something from which I have extremely benefited. Academics come first, of course, but I have learned certain skills from Student Government that cannot be learned in the classroom. These skills are practical by nature and will help me advance myself in the real world. Networking is one important skill that first comes to mind. Through my collaboration with students, faculty, and administrators, I have built relationships and made connections with very influential people. Not to mention that I have made some of my best friends through my work. While we are a very tight knit group, we are also very critical of each other when needed Student Government taught me many useful things: how to conduct professional meetings, set a budget, address sensitive issues, and motivate others to complete their projects.

Furthermore, Student Government enabled me to strengthen my overall leadership skills, a requirement for any occupation or graduate program. The top recruiters in the workforce stress the importance of student involvement on campus specifically student leadership. Being an organization member is important; however, it is equally important to show growth inside an organization.

Student activism is an idea open for interpretation. There is no right way to become involved on campus. To some, joining an organization with three members is the right decision.

Piece of advice: rather than joining ten different student organizations at once, join a few and hold a leadership position in each.

To others, joining a fraternity or sorority with over 100 members is a perfect fit. Regardless of personal preference, students need to see beyond the classroom and acknowledge that any form of involvement is better than no involvement at all.

University of Michigan students are lucky to attend school in such a beautiful city that is interconnected with the campus culture. Take advantage of the many resources that Ann Arbor has to offer. Work with Ann Arbor Organizations , such as the Hospital or the public schools, to help them reach their goals. Even doing something as small as planting a flower in the arboretum, picking up trash on South University, or even volunteering at the Ann Arbor YMCA or JCC will make a difference. As a student at the University of Michigan it is our duty and obligation to give back to our community.

Let me offer a piece of advice: college is too short to only focus on classroom academics. These are meant to be the best years of our lives, so why not take advantage of them? Make the most out of this opportunity by getting involved, and you will be sure to benefit in the long run. Do you want to reflect back on your college experience and only remember aspects of student life relating to academics? Or do you want to realize that your four years were filled with great experiences, memories created through your involvement in an organization, and a sense of impacting our campus culture after earning your degree? These choices will help define the person you are, and the person you aspire to be.

Excerpts from the Fall 2010 LSA Course Guide: "Critical Theory in Medicine and Healing," "Ghosts, Demons, Monsters: Fear and Dread in Literature," "Experiments in Nonlinear Dynamics," "Geoenvironmental Engineering," "African Cinema," "Introduction to Ethnobotany," "The Mathematics of Language."

To paraphrase that famous line from the Wizard of Oz: Toto, we’re not in high school anymore!

By now you’ve heard the drill from the deans: coming to the University of Michigan means learning from some of the world’s most renowned scholars in superb academic departments, most of which are ranked among the top 5 in the country. In addition to that spiel from the academic affairs administration, you have undoubtedly heard this line from representatives of the student affairs administration: “Your most memorable learning experiences at UM occur outside the classroom.”

As the director of academic advising in the Newnan LSA Academic Advising Center, I find myself amazed every semester by the number of interesting and unusual course titles and topics – just a few of which I noted above – that sprout up in the curricula at UM. This university provides myriad opportunities to take classes that deepen understanding, stretch the imagination, challenge assumptions, and gain new and nuanced perspectives on ourselves and the universe around us. That UM students sail beyond limited and conventional thinking and immerse themselves in ideas never before considered is central to my attempt as an advisor to inspire students to participate in the grandeur of the undergraduate experience. Frankly, there is no comparable time in your life – and I’ve lived many years in many places since leaving the undergraduate ranks – that permits the breadth of subject exploration and elicits the degree of intellectual wonder as do the undergraduate years.

While I attended a much smaller institution as an undergrad (Fordham University in the Bronx), I also had the pleasure of taking a diverse set of courses that enrich my life to this day. Would I have the appreciative and critical eye for art and film that I developed as a student in philosophy of aesthetics and film studies classes? Could I be the critical consumer of political discourse that I am had I not taken a course on rhetoric and propaganda? Do I still find compelling the range of human beliefs, behaviors and motivations because I took a religion and psychoanalysis class? Is my ability to assess quantitative data derived from my two semesters of calculus?

That UM bifurcates student existence into “academic affairs” and “student affairs” and then watches those distinct bureaucracies compete over which realm provides the best and most memorable “learning” is not at all representative of the undergraduate experience at UM.

Learning is a dynamic and integrative process that, as practiced particularly by UM undergraduates, spurs intellectual, social, personal and ethical development inside and outside the classroom.

True, you will grow smarter and more confident because we have many “top 5” departments and programs (and great thinkers and experts in each). But profound learning occurs throughout the undergraduate years because we also have 1241 student organizations (it says so on the Maize Pages; look it up) and tons of spontaneous moments of interaction, inquisition and reflection with friends, colleagues, and strangers on and off campus. And here is the key: what is absorbed in class is tested through application in social, organizational, and community settings, and what is experienced in those settings informs and animates understanding of classroom theories and concepts. There’s a catch, though: it doesn’t happen by osmosis.

You have to go to class and be an active participant in the course “dialogue.”

With the advent of PowerPoint slides and lecture notes posted to Ctools course sites, some students believe it is unnecessary to attend class. To me, skipping class is like buying a ticket to a concert and, instead of attending, downloading the play list. Sure, you know what was performed, but you didn’t hear the words, you didn’t listen to how songs were played, you didn’t become aware of what nuanced shadings on verse and melody occurred, and you weren’t present to discuss the concert after it ended. You never would skip a concert and think that viewing the playlist was sufficient, so why would you skim a PowerPoint loaded on Ctools instead of attending class? Even in a 400-person lecture, listening to a scholar present his or her ideas stimulates a much deeper understanding of the course material, and discussing the lectures outside of class often solidifies or expands that understanding.

Maintaining the habit of class attendance can also provide practical benefits. It helps you develop a productive discipline and a rhythm of responsibility, both of which enforce effective time management and a healthy sleep schedule. There’s also no better way to get to know your professors, who, after all, will be writing your letters of recommendation. As wonderful as these benefits are, though, the most important reason to attend class is the intrinsically valuable experience the classroom environment provides. In fact, the classroom experience can be just as useful and important as other “real life” experiences. There is no substitute for a direct encounter with fascinating ideas and the minds that produced them.

So, yes, Go Blue . . . but go to class, too