Join a cult. That’s my final advice to my fellow students as I enter into that mysterious place we call the real world. I am not suggesting you start sacrificing chickens in your dorm room or restart the now-defunct campus group that sword fought in the Arb. But instead this: find a professor who shares your worldview and understands your life ambition. Be part of an academic team.
My friend Katharine Mancuso ’12 took an 8 a.m. class with Provost David Whalen, and she told me she’d go at 6 a.m. if that’s what it required to take his class. Dr. Brad Birzer alone is reason enough to major in American Studies, and it seems every year someone starts dressing like Dr. Justin Jackson out of admiration. Among competing and disagreeing departments, no one disputes that Hillsdale College boasts a spectacularly good faculty.
Never again will you be surrounded by such a vast pool of capable mentors. While our liberal arts education strives to make us well-rounded individuals, we shouldn’t disregard its available depth. Hillsdale has these peculiar professor cults, and they are worth preserving. Become a protege. I did, and I know it has directed my otherwise meandering college experience.
I took John J. Miller’s advanced writing class the fall of my junior year, after two years of feeling academically amiss. I can’t remember why I signed up for it. Seven students tore one another’s writing apart, disagreed, praised improvement, and disagreed again. My graded assignments had as many words in red ink as they did in Times New Roman font.
It wasn’t all roses and unicorns, but an adventure in bad grades and endless revisions. He taught me to defend the Oxford comma to my dying breath, to hate adverbs with zeal, and to omit needless words. But he also showed me there was an academic home for me at Hillsdale, and that I had the potential to do something great with my remaining time here. I only wish Miller had come to the college sooner, though I might not have noticed because I was very busy during my underclassmen years picking out the perfect outfit for the next fraternity date party.
Joining the Dow Journalism Program as a rising senior meant I had much to learn in little time. I snagged my job as Opinions Editor because of an uncharacteristic temporary lapse in judgement by Editor-in-Chief Patrick Timmis (another person to whom I could dedicate an entire column of gratitude). Miller edited everything I wrote, even when I emailed it to him at 3:07 a.m. and needed feedback the same day. He lent books and advice. And when an ear infection prevented me from flying home for Thanksgiving last fall, he and his wife graciously opened up their home to me for the week. He’s been my biggest advocate and too often also my therapist.
What’s remarkable is how typical my story has become at Hillsdale. I think the journalism program is the best program at the college. I am on Team Journalism. But in every field there are students who beam with pride and loyalty to professors and departments, convinced as I am, that they have discovered the greatest treasure of the college. Let that competition continue.
So find your own Miller, whether in the Biology or History department. Offer something of value to them and in return they will enrich your college experience immeasurably. Try not to be needy — it will happen sometimes but try not to be — and instead be motivated and helpful. Their generosity will overwhelm you.
On Tuesday, Miller introduced me to a woman columnist at the newspaper I’m heading to after graduation because he thought she could be a mentor. She talked with me for nearly an hour, offering helpful words of advice and insight. When I hung up the phone, inspired and ready to board a New York-bound plane immediately, I dug around for a sweater and darted to Miller’s office to spout effusively about how great she was.
After a few heel clicks, I realized that it wasn’t where I had ended up, but how I got there. Miller has taken a nebulous interest and helped me channel it into a marketable skill that I love. Sometimes Hillsdale students look down on vocation, but we shouldn’t. Miller didn’t just advance my career; he advanced my understanding of how to pursue a life of purpose. That’s an education.
And it’s an education to which I am inestimably beholden. When we discover these rare individuals, we take on an obligation: to thank them. That task will take a lifetime to accomplish, beginning with something as small and insufficient as writing your last-ever Collegian column about the power of their service.