Professor Maynard Mack, Jr., aka "Sandy" Mack, directs the Honors Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. A few gems from his conversation yesterday with parents of prospective UM students:

• "Training is preparation for the known. Education is preparation for the unknown."
• "Civilization is just one generation thick. Our genes are no different from those of cave people. Civilization does not come with the genes."
• "Education is the most important work in the world."
• "Reflective students never just take a course — they take it and think about taking it — they take it and meta-take it."

And of course, being a "reflective student" applies not just to classwork, but to all of life ...

A search for other examples of Sandy Mackisms led me to David Bindel, a student of mathematics and computer science now in grad school at Berkeley. His collection of "Sandy's Sermons" [1] from the 1997-99 era provides much to ponder. Bindel himself seems to be a kindred spirit: his "Personal Page" [2] offers many pointers to topics that I already enjoy, plus links to things that I clearly need to learn more about.

Time for me to start studying (and thinking about what I'm studying (and thinking about the act of thinking about what I'm studying, and ... ) ... ) ...

(see also Do Meta (8 May 1999), MetaHominidae (7 February 2000), Idiocy Amelioration (18 Apr 2000), MetaMan (14 Nov 2001), My Affectations (19 Jan 2003), ... )

TopicThinking - TopicSociety - TopicLife - TopicProfiles - 2004-03-17

(correlates: Let It Snow, TeamWork, PullPush, ...)