Vocation, Values, and Taboo Topics

As we mused on themes of values and post-Olaf life, we realized that there was a crucial element missing. The typical college student in our generation is career-focused, vocation-seeking, and professional-future-oriented, and it is seen as detrimental, archaic, or unambitious to also pursue a life partner during our college career. How did we feel about this as a community?

Sudip sent us two fascinating articles to read. This one explores the modern trend of women embracing career-driven roles and avoiding romantic relationships in college, and this one discusses the advantages to marrying young, offering a perspective with which many of us were unfamiliar. After reading each piece, we had a discussion about our perceptions of the culture of dating, hooking up, and relationships at St. Olaf and about our own personal visions for how we see this incorporated into our lives.

In general, we found that the New York Times piece was too binary and assumptive. Does one have to completely sacrifice one's dating life in order to be academically and professionally successful? We certainly hope not. Many of us see ourselves eventually being married/having a life partner and/or starting a family. As a group of students hoping to lead a holistic and balanced life, this seems counterintuitive. Also, we generally found that the cases mentioned here were on the far end of the spectrum. While we acknowledge that the St. Olaf campus still does foster a certain element of a need to be in a relationship, we thought that this practice may be more unhealthy.

At the same time, we all believe that most St. Olaf students have very little experience being independent outside of campus life, perhaps some time a abroad, and maybe a summer or two at a summer camp. And we feel that these experiences really aren't enough of an exposure to a non-cushioned life to give us the perspective we need on what matters to us in a life partner. While we acknowledge that it can be valuable to find long-term relationships in college, it may not be wise to commit to them in the very long-term before living after graduation.

We posed several other questions for ourselves. Why do many women our age reject the feminism term? What are things everyone would not bend on when it comes to selecting a life partner? How is love for a partner different than the deep love in a close friendship? How do we balance being passionate about service with wanting to raise a family?

Talking about something that is generally taboo to personalize made us think critically about how we've evaluated our values this summer and how we tangibly see them as present in these sorts of situations.

Ethics and values

We at the St. Paul House have often talked of the importance of enacting our values in all sectors of our lives. This integration is a key component of social change. For us, it is an enormous privilege to have internships that are meaningful often align with our values. There may be times where we will have to find a paycheck just to survive, but we will keep our values and our passions close, finding venues to express them. 

Things we have learned

In Japan, all there of us interned for an organization called Asian Rural Institute,. Although, we all interning at the same oIn Japan, all there of us interned for an organization called Asian Rural Institute,. Although, we all interning at the same organization, we wanted to explore difficult topics. 

What Have We Learned After All?

"Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself." --Jane Addams


As our LSC experience winds to a close, the Northfield house would like to digest further the following (in no particular order of importance):

The Art of Value

Paul Knutson is Rice County’s Assessor; his job is to go to each property in Rice County and declare how much value each property has. When asked what method he used to measure “value,” Paul responded, “What I do is not a science. It is an art. You might tell me that the house across the street from here is worth $100,000. But I’d tell you that it’s worth $150,000. Value is completely subjective.”

Not an Intruder – Just an Intern

"“Ma’am, don’t leave your post!” the bailiff nearly shouted into the phone. “I think we’ve got an intruder. Don’t let him leave, and don’t you dare let him take anything out of that backpack!”"

Artes Liberales: Alma Mater*

A reflective response to Donald Kagan’s Farewell Speech, "Ave Atque Vale"

Having little or no sense of the human experience through the ages, of what has been tried, of what has succeeded and what has failed, of what is the price of cherishing some values as opposed to others, or of how values relate to one another, they leap from acting as though anything is possible, without cost, to despairing that nothing is possible.

The Great White Conversation

The liberal arts have been known for their teaching of the "classics" - Plato, Socrates, Shakespeare. By appreciating the classics, we can learn from history... only with such a background can we create informative and innovative ideas that progress us into a "good life" and a more beneficial future. I experienced this firsthand through St. Olaf's Great Conversation program my first two years of college - or what we liked to call it: The Great White Conversation.

Liberal Arts and Cultural Disconect

Kagan in his farewell speech "Ave atque vale" evaluates the evolution of liberal arts education. He criticized the failure of modern liberal arts colleges:

Class room learning can be very theoretical. The books we read and topics we cover in our courses can be very abstract.

Allegiance and Devotion

As students of the liberal arts, we are driven to enhance our understanding of the world, to seek truth, to foster discussion and productive criticism, to question what we have been taught is reality, to avoid taking things at face value, and to enrich our own education experience. We select majors, degrees, concentrations, focuses, and studies to prepare ourselves for a specific career or life path, and we expect that our liberal arts education will enable us to be effective, successful, fulfilled, and contributive individuals.

Free and Humble

Liberal arts education is supposed to make us free. Its also supposed to make us creative. Think of the most bizarre thing you can think of- an alien, say. Now go back to the figure you have on your mind and think about what constitutes the alien- I bet all the things you have used are the things that you have seen before.

Ave atque vale... et te contradic?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, what really sparked me into thinking about the liberal arts recently was a job posting I stumbled upon (or as a liberal arts professor might phrase it, a job posting upon which I stumbled).  The posting was for a government agency in Vermont, and it advertized an entry-level position for a student just completing either a graduate or an undergraduate degree in planning.

Education of Exploration

 I am someone who is passionate about music and the arts in general, but I feel somewhat unfulfilled by my music studies at Olaf.  I feel that my music major has only really prepared me to become a better musician… and nothing more. 

Life's "Important Questions"

In his essay "Ave Atque Vale," Donald Kagan laments the current state of liberal education in the U.S., comparing it to the education received by English gentlemen in the eighteenth century, which "prized sociability over the solitude of hard study." According to Kagan, liberal education has abandoned its quest of knowledge as an end in itself, failing to provide undergraduates with a common philosophical and historical foundation upon which to discuss life's important questions.