Hutton Honors College

The Bloomington campus, more than any I know, challenges the conventional wisdom that a college education is a dress rehearsal for the real world. (Thoreau refers to college students who "play life" rather than live it.) I believe that the real world exists on this campus in very special ways: in our many classrooms and libraries, in our science laboratories, in our residential halls, in our recreational facilities, in our theaters, museums, and arts centers, in our student organizations, and especially in our numerous extracurricular and outreach programs. Most of all, the real world is defined at IU by a campus population drawn from different cultural and economic backgrounds, among students and faculty with vastly diversified interests and talents—all of whom share a remarkable potential for intellectual and spiritual growth. Such opportunity for creative learning, both practical and theoretical, is one in which the Honors College plays a major contributing role.

Given such a large, vibrant, and pluralistic campus, Honors College students may find the following guidelines (they should be familiar to you from our Freshman Orientation Meeting) useful for getting the most out of what IU has to offer. Call them Miller's Ten Commandments for Leading the Good Life on the Bloomington Campus:

1. Keep easy distractions in their place. You need rest and relaxation, of course, but don't forget that you've made an intellectual commitment. Follow it. Work hard and play hard.
2. Get your money's worth. You and your family have paid for your courses, so go to class, and get all you can out of your classroom experiences as well as out of extracurricular activities. A recent IU graduate described this university as a treasure chest, but you need to take the initiative to open it and grab the jewels.
3. Exploit us—your teachers and your advisers. Raise questions, both in and out of the classroom. Don't become merely passive absorbers of information, but be creative readers and writers and listeners ready to question received knowledge of any kind. Does the earth revolve around the sun? How would you set about proving this fact? And what difference does this 16th-century discovery make to you as a thinking human being?
4. Visit, when you can, your professors one on one—that's what office hours are all about. Don't whine and whimper, but seek help, if you need it, or just drop by to talk with us about yourself, your courses, your aspirations, or anything else.
5. Where the option is available, choose the good teacher over the subject matter. We've hundreds of fine teachers at IU, but also, as at any college or university, some duds.
6. Be bold. Don't be enslaved by peer pressure or other people's expectations for you. Experiment. Try a course or two on a Pass/Fail basis if you want. Be bold also to recognize when you've gotten in over your head and need to drop a course.
7. Be persistent (not obnoxious) when you know you're right. If you get an answer you can't accept from one administrator, ask again. Ask someone else. Confront bureaucracy.
8. Don't follow the easiest path—unless it truly interests and attracts you for reasons other than its being easy. Those things for which you have to work hardest are usually the most worthwhile and rewarding.
9. IU has a relatively safe campus, so go about your business without anxiety. But do take precautions. If you're on your way back to your dorm in the wee hours, walk with a companion. If you've consumed alcohol, let some who hasn't do the driving. Do keep your dorm room locked—non-students, on occasion, may come by with mischievous intent.
10. Finally, at least once a week, consider your luck and good fortune at being a student, here in Bloomington, on a magnificent campus with all kinds of intellectual and cultural opportunities, a truly special member of the Indiana University community to which I heartily welcome you.

    Posted September 26, 2001.