Education Is An "Experience", Not A "Product"

As a Program Head here at BCIT, I find sometimes a student will approach me to complain "This course is not what I thought it would be; this is not what I was expecting." Occasionally the complainant may even demand a refund. Of course, if it is confusion based on the course title or description or prerequisites, I completely understand. But sometimes a student is actually railing against a different teaching style, or an alien set of ideas, or a new paradigm - a new way of thinking or approaching the world or interacting with others.

At such moments I want to remind students (and us all) that higher education is not a "product" that we pull off the shelf and then return when it doesn't quite fit right, when it doesn't look or feel exactly as we expected. Higher education is an experience. Its sum is greater than the ingredients listed on the label. When we interact in a learning and teaching environment, we gain much more than a set list of "course ingredients" to be easily and predictably digested.

In fact, hopefully we get much more than what we bargained for, more than what we expected. And this "more" is not always predictable, not always comfortable or easy at first. But if we have faith in the experience, and faith in each other, we will come away with a much richer experience than we could have imagined.