Midsummer thoughts

We are halfway through the summer (about six weeks until classes begin at Ashland), and if you are like me, you have not done much thinking about college yet. We need to begin getting our brains back into gear though.

• Quality reading this summer will help you a lot, and it does not have to be school stuff. In fact, it shouldn’t be. I am about halfway through Fahrenheit 451, and I admit that it is sometimes heavy going. It does stretch one’s mind, a good thing to do. You might prefer a collection of short stories.
• Write an actual paper letter to someone. We will be doing a lot of in-class handwriting this Fall, so you might as well get into practice. The Post Office can sell you an envelope if you do not have one.
• You know that you will need some preparation for Fall: new clothing, getting the computer fixed, etc. Might as well do it now and do it gradually. (If your computer needs service, you don’t want to get caught in the last-second rush.)
• This would be a great time to visit the Ashland campus and walk around the town a bit, especially if you are new here. Find your classrooms. The campus is very beautiful, but we are usually too hurried in the Fall to appreciate it.

I have a general plan in mind for the coming semester:

• This blog will continue, mainly to give personal advice and informal material. A lot of the pre-semester material will be “getting ready” advice.
• Early in the semester, we will spend a lot of time on computer how-to. If we were at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we would spend time on the proper use of a writing quill and the care of a flying broom. We don’t have those, but we do have computers, and I keep discovering that students struggle. Very likely you did not have experts in high school who were teaching you the basics, so we will do that now.
• One huge nationwide issue is AI (Artificial Intelligence) in education. Before I came to Panera’s for breakfast this morning, I read a long article on the topic in The Washington Post. As I sit here, I overhear a conversation at the next table about AI. It is everywhere. One major strategy we will use to help you think on your own (instead of just pushing a single button to tell AI fake your writing) is in-class writing. We will do it a lot.
• There is more to writing a good paper than simply putting commas in the right places—more even than figuring out how to drop a thesis sentence into the end of the first paragraph. (Yes, both of those are important.) Critical thinking is a skill that a educated person needs, and it is central to the mission of Ashland University. (By the way, critical thinking is something AI is notoriously poor at.) We will spend a lot of effort on building your critical thinking abilities.

So that is our future. Keep reading and we will work through it together.