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Reading Is Required
An editor for Esquire magazine recently completed reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z in his two-year quest to become
the smartest guy in the world and to also write a book about what he has learned. He read more than 33,000 pages in the 32 volumes of the
reference text.
That is a great deal of reading by any count, but it's still no guarantee he is the world's smartest guy. In fact it falls a bit short when compared to completing a four-year degree at a university like UConn. By the best anecdotal estimates from the UConn Co-op bookstore and discussions with several students, the average reading requirement for an undergraduate degree means that a student will read 80 books with approximately 52,000 pages of information. This is to complete 40 three-credit classes (fulfilling the 120 credits needed for graduation) that each assigns two textbooks, which together have about 650 pages of reading material. Learning how to effectively support or defend ideas by writing papers, hearing thought-provoking lectures and doing focused research assignments adds to the value of a formal education.
The reading and workloads for graduate degrees follow a similar pattern, with the volume of information that needs to be passed through bleary eyes in some disciplines truly staggering, as in the study of medicine or law.
Yet the byproduct of a quality education is not to think you are the smartest person around. Instead, it's the understanding that reading and learning new things is a life-long endeavor, whether you need to stay current with professional literature and new technology in order to meet job requirements or simply want new knowledge for home improvements or hobbies.
What I learned in college is that you can and should try to learn something new each day. It makes the world a more interesting place, without having to fit 33,000 pages of information in with the 52,000 pages that are already stuffed into your head. It allows time to learn new things by doing, observing, talking or any other number of ways that learning happens.
Oh, and I guess you could also read a good book.