Tuesday, April 13, 2010

There are some things computers just can't replace.

Crawford discusses the difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how" in his chapter "Thinking as Doing." I think this is an essential part of our bigger question of whether or not college has really taught us anything. In my experience, college has taught me a lot of "knowing that," which makes sense considering "knowing how" in many cases would require cutting into a person. But there is also the benefit of having labs, where I have learned a lot of "how" (for instance, by cutting up animals, as cruel as it sounds. I've even performed surgery on a rat before, and yes, it did live).

Knowing that and knowing how are also important in the career world. Multiple times I have talked to people about possible paths to take after graduation and there are always questions on whether or not I have ever tried a certain job. A good example of this is research. In science, it is important to do research while you're an undergrad if you plan on going to graduate school. In fact, a lot of times they don't even care what kind of research you do, as long as it's mostly science (and that's a really broad category). The idea is that by doing any research, you get experience for what it would be like to work for the next six or more years of your life doing research. Now, there is a difference between different labs, but the essential ideas are still the same: formulating hypotheses, testing them, retesting them, explaining it to people, figuring out what when wrong and how to fix it, etc. It requires your mind to work a certain way, and no matter how much you read about what research is like, you can never really know until you do it. Knowing that office jobs can be boring does not do justice to how boring they really can be if you've never worked in an office (I'm a little biased against them, but so is Crawford). In doing something you really get to know it, like growing a garden for the first time and figuring out different nutrient requirements of plants. It goes beyond all the theoreticals you learn by surfing the web and makes it real.

1 comment:

  1. I find this is often the case in my major too. In art history classes I've learned a lot about how other artists make work, and the ideas and reasons they had for making it. That's the "knowing that" part. My studio classes, while they make use of what I've learned in art history, are much more solid; I actually know how to make something after taking those. It gives substance to the "knowing that" too; I can better appreciate other artwork if I know from experience how it was made. I think it's cool how this idea can come into play in all kinds of disciplines.

    ReplyDelete