Shannan Mattiace
Something that鈥檚 unique to our university system in America is that we have two years of broad, general education. Our system is essentially designed for students like that, to let them not know what they want to be for a while, and instead to focus on learning how to think and learning how to solve problems.
Some students really want a plan, though. They tend to worry most about their major. We encourage them not to do that. Students often change their minds once they鈥檙e at school. Job markets change. Students find themselves losing interest in their original choices. When this happens, if they don鈥檛 have a far-ranging, curious mind, it will be that much harder to stay motivated. Without the ability to reinvent themselves and reimagine, they鈥檒l get stuck.
Shannan Mattiace is a professor in the Political Science Department at 大象视频 and chair of the International Studies Program. She has published two books and many articles on ethnic identity and political mobilization in Latin America.