Transparency item: The Perspectives section of the Graphic is comprised of articles based on opinion. This is the opinion and perspective of the writer.
The Great Books program is well known at Pepperdine. Oftentimes, the class many first years take for a convocation series credit becomes a beloved series of two or three years of the Great Books colloquium or minor.
Completing the Great Books program takes years of heavy reading, writing and discussion. Considering the workload, why is it that so many students choose, often with passionate conviction, to embrace the process?
As a Great Books student myself, there are a lot of responses that come to mind. Great Books has had an impact on my choice in major, my career path and my spirituality. Many of the books I’ve read throughout my minor have brought forth ideas that have altered my worldview. I have reading, writing about and especially discussing these great works to thank for much of the person that I have become over the past few years at Pepperdine.
Although I would have plenty to say about the program personally, I decided it would be fun to hear from a range of perspectives, both from students and professors, who have been touched by the Great Books Program. As expected of spending so much time with works from the greatest minds in literature, it is uncommon to find a student or professor who does not carry with them a lasting influence from Great Books.
For some students, there is a tangible positive effect on the paths toward their career. Sophia Burger, a senior Great Books student who is pursuing law school, wrote in an email on Sept. 22 about the impact the program had on her internship at the Department of Justice.
“I was able to more easily write legal analysis and contribute to legal documents because of the academic writing skills I developed writing Great Books essays,” Burger wrote.” The process of matching the facts of a particular situation or case to legal standards requires similar writing techniques to the Great Books essay, and I feel more confident to pursue law school because of my experience in the GB program.”
Kampton Carter, a senior who is also on the pre-law track, wrote a similar testimony in a Sept. 24 email.
“The papers I wrote reflected clearer, more concise thinking and reasoning,” Carter wrote. “Analytical thinking and applying Great Ideas became second nature as well. I grew so much in his classes and I truly believe that these skills I learned will be vital to me when I fill out applications to law schools.”
Tuan Hoang, a professor of history and Great Books at Pepperdine, further explained the enrichment Great Books provides in a Sept. 21 email.
“Great Books classes are discussion-based by design, and it helps students to be better oral communicators,” Hoang wrote. “Even in a world where a lot of communication takes place over email and texting, oral communication remains essential in many professions: from healthcare to marketing, from education to politics.”
Great Books supports students in the process of entering their careers and contributing to those fields in a meaningful way. Possibly more enticing, however, is the way the program fosters curiosity.
We live in a world surrounded by mystery. Scientific discoveries are ever-expanding, spiritual truths are constantly debated and transformed and religions branch off and are occasionally newly created. There is much that we simply do not know. To not be in a constant state of curiosity is to be sorely missing out on the abundance of mystery intrinsic to existing.
Pepperdine senior Ashleigh Weinstock had a similar thing to say.
“In academia and in the modern world in general, there’s the urge to pursue rightness over curiosity,” Weinstock said. “And I think often in a classroom setting, questions in the same sense are used to display the rightness of one’s own opinion rather than to query what one believes or what the person that you’re talking to truly believes.”
Great Books provides a disruption to this pattern.
“I think that Great Books does a unique job of making students comfortable with not knowing the right answer and understanding that sometimes right answers don’t exist,” Weinstock said.
It’s easy to forget the grandeur of the fact that we are surrounded by infinite possible perspectives unless we are actively searching for them. Pepperdine senior Leo Hawke wrote on this idea in a Sept. 23 email.
“Great books has exposed me to a wide variety of perspectives that inform the world around me,” Hawke wrote. “It has taught me how to understand the world without placing value judgments, in turn helping me form a stronger worldview for myself. These elements have provided me with academic success, but on a personal level, they have helped me navigate a breadth of experiences.”
For some, including myself, investigating spiritual texts like “Revelations of Divine Love,” “Fear and Trembling” and “The Brothers Karamazov” among many others has sparked curiosity and thought that goes beyond just embracing mystery, but can alter one’s understanding of their spirituality and purpose.
Senior Arik Chu said constantly asking “why” has become central to how he approaches life, a habit he credits to the Great Books program.
“Great Books provides the greatest platform to ask that question,” Chu said. “If you never ask the question why, you always end up at some point in some sort of crisis. And I think Great Books gives you the ability to have that crisis now every second of your life, but you live a meaningful life. And I wouldn’t give it for the world.”
Great Books discussions have a unique capacity to take one’s mind on a journey that would be impossible to embark on alone. For me, this has translated to investigating my spirituality farther than could have otherwise been possible.
John Kern, a professor of religion and Great Books at Pepperdine wrote about a similar idea in a Sept. 23 email.
“Great Books is a path of self-transcendence both for students and the faculty who guide them,” Kern wrote. “After all, to borrow Augustinian language, we are reading the books, but we are also being read by them and are invited to think deeper about ourselves and the world around us.”
Discussion provides a kind of wave of understanding embedded with occasional epiphanies the group rides together.
“I can’t count how many class discussions became so saturated with meaning that we all lost track of time and discovered treasures in the text that none of us — myself included —could see on our own,” Kern wrote.
We have the opportunity at any point in time to pick up a book written by a person who has been through our struggles and overcame them. Who has thought through issues we are trying to think through, or has come up with questions we would have never contrived ourselves. There are thousands of years of thought at our fingertips, of religion, philosophy and of accounts of the depths of the human experience.
A little over three years ago I sat down at the massive marble round table in Payson for my first day of Great Books, slightly nervous about getting enough participation points for the day, and probably fretting that I didn’t quite understand the text deeply enough. I didn’t expect Great Books to inspire me to switch my major to philosophy, or to spark what I hope is a lifelong obsession with chasing truth.
What’s beautiful about it is that my story isn’t profoundly unique. Most students don’t step out of the Great Books experience quite the same as they were before. __________________
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Contact Mahali Kuzyk via email: mahali.kuzyk@pepperdine.edu
