Five Lessons for Every College Student

Nearly forty years ago, when I was 28 years old, I did something a little reckless: I resigned a job I loved, teaching children in the public elementary schools of Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to a strange town to start a new college with my family. I first served as academic dean, then provost, and now serve as the president of the university.

For the last few months, I’ve traveled around the world, sharing stories of four decades in higher education from my recent memoir, The Bee & the Acorn. Everywhere I’ve gone, parents have one question for me. Well, actually two. The first question is, “How did you do it? How did you go from zero students to 45,000 students and alumni?” The second question is, “What can my student do to succeed in college?”

These questions sound very different, yet they have the same answer. For the lessons I learned in founding and leading a university are the very same lessons that can benefit a first-year student, no matter where they study. Pencils ready? Here they are, five lessons from my own 40-year college education that will help carry any college student from orientation to graduation and beyond.

Lesson No. 1: Prepare to improvise.

If you’ve ever performed improvisational comedy, you know the single most important rule of improv is “Yes-And.” (Quick review: In comedy improv, one universal rule is to agree with what your partner says, no matter how random or wild, and then add something original of your own.) You won’t find me on stage at Second City anytime soon, but without a doubt, Yes-And has been key to my own success.

Back in 1977, when I was teaching elementary school, I dropped a bombshell on my family: I wanted to resign from my secure post, where I was beloved, and start a new college for the arts. I knew my parents might worry. What could a young schoolteacher in her twenties possibly know about starting a new university? What moxie! But you know what? They said Yes-And.

My parents handed me their life savings and said, “We believe in you.” What a gift. What a responsibility. They even moved from Atlanta to Savannah, to help build this dream. They embraced the unknown with fearless joy, and I learned from their example. Over the following decades, I found myself saying Yes-And at every turn.

For example, when some of our first students asked for a course in fashion, I said Yes-And. Within two years, we had a B.F.A. degree in fashion, and today we have graduate degree programs, and one of the largest Schools of Fashion in the world. A few years later, when students asked for a soccer team, I said Yes-And. Today, our university enjoys the largest and most award-winning intervarsity athletics programs at any arts university in the nation.

First-year students would do well to model this thinking in their own academic careers. College will throw many curve balls your way: an unusually difficult course, an impossible project, a new city, a curious and perfectly strange roommate. Embrace the unknown with a smile. Don’t run away. Say Yes-And.

Lesson No. 2: Treasure your new independence.

In 1980, when we needed to create a library for our new college, we bypassed the usual reliance on large alumni donors; after all, we had no alumni to donate! And so we called on other universities, public libraries, and even post offices around the country to collect any lost, forgotten, or duplicate books that might be of use to our students.

Colleagues at other universities looked askance at all this groveling for books, but no matter. We were unconventional from the start. We followed no orthodoxies, were beholden to no coterie of well-heeled donors. As a result, we could follow our hearts wherever they led. We got our library.

The same goes for new college students. You are free! If you ever felt like the peer pressure of high school hemmed you in, college is your time to step outside the box, cut your own path.

Here’s an assignment: Sometime during your first year of college, do something that would surprise your friends back home. Never been in a play? Find an audition. Never been the sporting type? Join an intramural team. When you go home for Thanksgiving, make their jaws drop, in admiration. They may scoff at first, but secretly, they will be impressed, maybe even envious. Freedom looks good on you.

Lesson No. 3: Embrace being an outsider.

Because it’s so relatively young, our university has always enjoyed something of an “outsider” status. In those first two decades, we were new, different, unknown in the landscape of higher education. Educators and administrators from other universities didn’t always know what to make of us. Some still don’t.

We were emboldened by those early experiences, such as building the library from nothing. I came to see this outsider status as our secret power. As outsiders, we could innovate and differentiate ourselves from other universities. We could defy expectations because we weren’t obliged to uphold conventions and traditions for their own sake.

For example, we didn’t know you weren’t supposed to talk about “careers” at an art college, so we helped our students focus on their professional aspirations — an intentional focus that has resulted in a 98 percent graduate placement rate. We didn’t know you were “supposed” to have five days of class, so we created the four-day academic week to make time for practicums, field-trips, extra help sessions, and one-on-one meetings with professors on Fridays.

Whenever someone said, “You can’t do that,” we decided that if it benefits the students, well, maybe we can. You can do the same as a student in college. Whatever others tell you can’t be done is the very thing you should consider doing, especially if your heart is leading you in that direction.

Here’s a little secret. There are two types of first-year students: Those who are outsiders, and those who don’t yet know that. Do what they say can’t be done. Follow your instincts, even when others shrug their shoulders or roll their eyes.

Lesson No. 4: To write your future, look to your history.

College is a time for reinvention, a season of life to become your truest self. Selecting a major and a career is a formidable task. What do you love? What are you good at? These can seem like impossible questions when you’re 18 years old. Be of good cheer, though, for your history offers wisdom. Look to your past and you might find your future.

In 2000, when I was named president of the university after more than two decades in academic service, I wondered, “What kind of college president should I be?” Many university presidents devote their efforts to fundraising, while others focus on specialized areas of interest around the institution, such as business, athletics, or government relations. What would I do?

I have always been a teacher. As a teenager, I taught piano to neighborhood children, and as a young adult, I created a new arts curriculum for gifted students in the public schools of Atlanta. And so, as president, I have devoted myself first and foremost to ensuring a quality classroom experience for university students. I visit classes. I personally review professional development plans for faculty members, through the Presidential Fellowship program. I work with deans and chairs to rewrite curricula. I learned what kind of president to be, by remembering the educator I’ve always been.

What have you always loved? What talents and skills have you long cultivated? What makes your heart sing? Look in the mirror and remember the person you’ve always been. Have you always loved making others smile? Consider performing arts. Are your high school notebooks and journals filled with intricate sketches and drawings? Consider illustration or industrial design. Is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter your favorite destination? Consider themed entertainment. When you look to your past, you’ll find your heart telling you where you should go.

Lesson No. 5. Cherish those around you.

I wouldn’t have survived the long, beautiful journey of creating a new arts university, growing from one building and zero students to more than 100 buildings on three continents, without my family. When you fly, you look around to find loved ones holding you up.

For all the freedom of your college experience, as you ascend into your own brilliant future, look back once in a while to see how far you’ve come. Write an email to your parents. Call your grandmother. They will encourage and reenergize you when you need a little extra boost to power through a big project or put in some serious hours of rigorous preparation for finals. In forty years of higher education, I can attest to the fact that the students who maintain a healthy relationship with their families back home always seem the happiest. Remember the people who got you there. Trust me; they haven’t forgotten you.

If there’s a single truth running through these five lessons, it’s this: Be fearless. Run toward new challenges with joy and imagination, and you’ll be surprised by how far you’ll go.

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Paula Wallace is the president and founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design, a university with locations in Savannah, Atlanta, Hong Kong, and Lacoste, France.