COMM I MHB2 (18962)

Activity guide

1. Write a two-level sentence outline of “The Four Extras” using traditional coding. The copy of the essay is given below.

The Four Extras

Richard W. Burkhardt 

A freshman college student is a young person with time on his hands.  Away from home, with no one to tell him when to study and when to play, the freshman student has to learn how to spend his time.  The wise freshman student attends class regularly; reads his assignments every day, and studies industriously because this is what college is all about, courses and assignments.  But there is even more – much more – to be gained from college if one is keen enough to recognize the extra opportunities which exist.  Many students do not discover the extra educational opportunities of college until they are seniors; and so too many people never discover these treasures.  One can profit from these discoveries throughout his entire four years if he finds them as a freshman.  A college education is not just the courses one takes –it is all the things that one learns in and out of class while he is in college.  It is the extra-class opportunities that are called treasures.

There are at least four extras which are available to the alert student.  The first is knowing college professors as people.  In the limited time of the scheduled class period, one may miss coming to know the professor as a person. Moreover, in the limited time of the scheduled class period, one can never learn all that the professor knows about his subjects.  Few experiences are more rewarding than conversations with informed teachers about the ideas they cherish and the values they hold.  For as a person of college ages such experiences are an education by themselves.

Right or wrong, it is very hard to establish such a relationship with a high school teacher.  This may be because the student cannot see the opportunity.  It is not always easy in college, but it is usually easier, partially because the student, in a new environment, looks at his professors differently from the way he looked at his high school teachers.  It is mostly growing up.  A college student, one year older than a high school student, may be more grown up, and therefore, able to see his professor as an adult worth knowing.

The second extra of college life is attending the special events that are brought to the campus—speakers, orchestras, and plays, and the convocations.  One is always surprised at the number of people who pass up these events by saying “I don’t really like music,” or “Why should I go to hear somebody talk about Mesopotamia when I can’t even spell it?”  Why do people go to college if it is not to learn new things and to find out about ideas they have never heard of before?  The purpose of education is to lead on, to lead out, to take people where they have not been before, to develop new tastes, new appreciations, to develop respect for other people’s ideas of beauty and expression.  Since in many colleges attendance at convocation is no longer required, students sometimes demonstrate their new-found independence by staying away – and thereby miss a part of their educational opportunities.

The third extra is related to the second.  On most college campuses student groups sponsor outstanding films for those who care to see them and arrange discussion groups on a wide variety of topics.  A judicious sampling of student-arranged intellectual activities is an extra opportunity.  If able and active students do not participate in this type of activity, it becomes feeble and uninteresting and disappears…This type of education is rewarding because it is so spontaneous, and has little outside supervision, and because one can test his ideas and sharpen his arguments in verbal exchanges with fellow students.  

The fourth extra – and there are others – is reading unassigned books and magazines.  A library is a thing of wonder and excitement.  One can do the assigned reading for his courses first, and see what tremendous things there are beyond the assignment, beyond the class.  Some college libraries still have open stacks, which means that one can walk where the books are and look and read and browse to his heart’s content.  There it is everything that anyone ever thought, felt, or said about anything, in four to five languages, with or without pictures.  The only thing that remotely compares to the stacks of a library is the dessert section of a good cafeteria.

No one of these four extras will cost much out-of-the-pocket money.  Most of them are free to all college students, or, to be more accurate, be blinded by the fraternity, sorority, and athletic-society type of opportunity.  Some are blinded by excessive devotion to the few courses for which they are enrolled and think they cannot afford the time for the extras.

But one can afford the time if he is smart enough to schedule his life so that some of these extras become a part of his education.  Everyone has the same twenty-four hours, but each person spends the twenty-four hours, he will in effect be getting a double college education, while others are obtaining only one.  One’s college education consists not only the courses he takes; it consists of what he does with his time at college.  Why not get a complete college education?  Take the extras too.  

2. Save your outline in PDF using the file name

    Comm 1&2 DAYS Topic 9 activity Your surname

    Example:    Comm 1&2 TF Topic 9 activity  Salazar

 3. Upload the file in your Google Drive folder on October 7, 2022.

Evaluation Criteria

Your outline will be graded using the rubric below.