Why did you choose Shimer? 
I chose to attend Shimer because of the teaching style. At Shimer, no one, not the professor, the author or any students, has a monopoly on answers or questions. When I visited Shimer, before deciding to attend, I sat in on a class and it quickly became clear to me that it wasn’t the same pseudo-discussions of my high school English courses. Shimer was a place where I could imagine my thinking growing rather than being stifled by lectures and textbooks that did the thinking for me.

What is your favorite course at Shimer?
My favorite Shimer course, while I didn’t know it at the time, was Natural Sciences One, “Laws and Models of Chemistry.” Its structure taught me about what the process of science is. Reading original sources that are the debate that is science teaches science as a dialogue between great thinkers trying to figure out just how our world works.

What is something about your experience at Shimer that you will remember for a very long time?
At some colleges, students party and argue about football teams. At Shimer when people party they’re more likely arguing about philosophers. In my first semester at Shimer, I remember watching a “brawl” over some Greek words and Heidegger’s interpretation of them. It was the first time I had seen people argue at a party while citing philosophers.

What are your plans for after graduation? 
I want to work for education reform – I think that our public school classrooms should look more like Shimer and less like prisons. I’ll start by teaching – I’m looking for ways to learn to teach, including Teach for America and the New York Teaching Fellows programs.

What has been the most beneficial aspect of your Shimer education?   
By forcing me to listen intelligently to others and to build ideas cooperatively in dialogical classes, Shimer has taught me to think and to communicate. These, I believe, will serve me well and are necessary to living a good life.
     
What advice would you give to prospective students? Some colleges seem to have lost their focus and become nothing more than job training schools.  Shimer will teach you the skills you need to live the examined life, which isn’t fun and isn’t easy, but is the only life worth living.