My Education- College

I thought that it might be interesting to share my educational background on this blog. First, it would help share with you what I have invested my time into learning and give you an intimate look at how I’ve come to be where I am.  Second, writing about my educational background may serve as a bit of a “review” of programs or certifications I have taken. I think this may be interesting for others thinking about similar areas of study.
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Because this is the first post in a series, I suspect it would be best to start with my early education. Not elementary school or even high school, but I will start with college which was my first formal exposure to health and wellness education.

So, let’s begin.
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While I do now live in Maine, I grew up in Michigan and attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Nestled next to the sand dunes on Lake Michigan, Hope College sat in the shadows of windmills created by Hollanders with proud Dutch heritage. Between the windmills, tulips, beaches, sand dunes, and lakes, it looks quite idyllic.

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I attended Hope College for several reasons. My dad went there. My sister was a current student. I could continue to compete in Track and Field. It seemed like a logical decision to go there, but in all honesty, I mostly went there because it was comfortable and fairly easy to transition into. Eighteen year old Keenan was not as adventurous as he is now…

Arriving on campus came with all the joys and struggles of a young scholar. Within the first week of classes I knew that I was entering college, or at least the classes I was in, well below the level of my peers. I could blame my high school education, laziness, or distractions. It was definitely all of these to some degree, but my biggest shortcoming was my lack of any study skills or routine. Hope College is regarded as a particularly challenging school, especially within the sciences.

Frankly, high school was a place where you showed up, stayed out of trouble, and you got fine grades. So when I got to the well respected Hope College, I had no idea how to study. I had no discipline to do anything more than review notes. I don’t think I even realized that I couldn’t do homework out 15 minutes before class. It probably wasn’t until half way through sophomore year when I got into more interesting classes within my major where I could compete with my friends for high grades.

I figured it out, but it took some time. Fortunately for me, I had by chance chosen a field of study that interested me- Exercise Science.

Within the Exercise Science curriculum you are placed in high level courses such as General Chemistry (which is notoriously known for weeding student out of pre-med, pre-PT, pre-OT programs) in your first semester. Like I said, Hope College is a very good school. GENERAL Chemistry should not be so hard, by it really was at Hope. I withdrew by the second week of September.
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After I made it through the first year, about the time when I started to compete with my friends/classmates, I got into the fun classes of the major. Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Science of Strength and Conditioning, etc. . . Some of the classes really made an impact on me. The topics, professors, challenges, and experiences made the classes a great learning experience. In the next section, I will go explain just a few of my favorites.

Human Anatomy

While I did take this class my freshman year when I was an underachieving student, I arguably took more from this class than any other. At Hope College, Human Anatomy is a 4 credit course with a pedagogical lecture as many have sat through. In addition, it also has a weekly 3 hour lab. At most schools Human Anatomy Lab is multi-hour session of anatomy workbooks, plastic model labelling, and fetal pig dissections. Fortunately because of Hope’s reputation in the sciences, freshmen took Gross Anatomy Lab with cadavers. While this is normally reserved for medical school, my class of 30 students was able to spend three hours every Tuesday morning at 7am with four cadavers. Learning anatomy this way is real. You learn that the body is not how it is shown in the books. It is wildly complex.

It gave me a great respect for there being so much more than bones and muscles. This helped me understand that the systems are so much more interdependent than I could have ever expected. Moreover, it inspired my interest in both biomechanics and academia which helped fuel my remaining years of study.

Exercise Physiology

Exercise Physiology Laboratory gave me a living respect for the human body. Anatomy taught me about the body’s construction and complexity, but Exercise Physiology introduced me to how the body responds to stress. Again, at Hope we had great access to laboratories which included high-end equipment. We were able to run all kinds of tests on each other including VO2 Max Tests, Astrand Tests, BOD POD Measurements, Wingate Tests, Hydrostatic Weighings, and many more. We learned to administer these tests with the precision and professionalism of a clinician. It was a great semester that introduced us to the duties of an Exercise Physiologist working in both sport and rehab.

Human Biomechanics

Biomechanics was one of favorite classes taught by one of my favorite professors. Again, what is typically a pedagogical course, this class was taught hands on with real application. Professor Slette, a Norwegian, studied at Hope as a college student and returned to Michigan to teach at his alma matter. Prof. Slette took the mundane levers, rotational forces, coefficients of friction, and plasticity ratios out of the classroom and into the real world. We climbed the rafters of the field house with Prusik knots, lifted his Land Rover with levers, split logs, and learned about multiple careers available with a degree in Exercise Science.

While Hope was a great school, it very much pushed its students in a certain direction. For example, within the Exercise Science major, you were entirely led down one of two paths- become a strength and conditioning coach (preferably at a collegiate level) or become a Doctor of Physical Therapy. While both of these careers are great, it wasn’t entirely inclusive to the students that wanted to work outside of clinics, labs, or college weight rooms. Fortunately, the faculty had Prof. Slette whom opened up our eyes to a variety of careers. As a true outdoorsman, he taught us about mountaineering jobs. On multiple occasions he brought in homemade exercise and rehab equipment to introduce innovation. He invited a salesperson from Stryker who allowed us to play with her bone saws and other surgical equipment. These were some of the most encouraging and practical lessons I learned within my field of study.

Regulation of Human Metabolism

Human Metabolism is the class you hear about from Day 1 at Hope College. Feared for its complex content and stone cold professor, it was the class that kept students from graduating in the 8th semester. Every aspect of energy utilization needed to be not only memorized, but understood. Students joked (kind of) that we needed to know every physiological step from when a person smelled a cheeseburger to when the same person excreted what was “left” of the cheeseburger.

Dr. Dunn taught this class with the intensity multitudes beyond that of General Chemistry. I was challenged by the lecture portion of this class more than any other. Fortunately, all of the peers were in the same boat and the competition inspired us to do well.

As you could guess, because it was Hope College, a strenuous lab was adjunct to the lecture. Here we are again, at most colleges this lab would include insulin tests, gas testing, etc. . . but we did all of that in our first or second year. Instead, Human Metabolism Lab consisted of writing a research proposal, conducting research over the course of several weeks, compounding all the data into a study, and hopefully submitting for publication.

We had freedom to conduct most any type of research (ethically) that we wanted. It seemed like there no constraints with money or resources. Funding for research was a mega-priority at Hope.
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While great freedom was nice, it created a monster-load of work. Countless evening hours were spent testing and training volunteer participants on a HUMAC system. Late nights of data collection made this single lab feel like a full time job. Never mind the adjunct lecture, other classes, Track practice, and an actual job. This was my hardest class, but it felt so good to pass that class with the sweetest A- I had ever earned.

More Lessons

I could continue to write about the classes I took at Hope that challenged and inspired me, but academics were only a small part of my education. College was a time that taught me to be a human. It helped me come into myself. I’ll spend less time on these topics, but here are three that shaped me.

First, attending college wasn’t terribly exciting to me after high school, but hey, it was just what you did. For me, being able to compete in Track and Field inspired me go into with a good attitude. Competing in collegiate sports caused insane levels of stress and frustration. Sometimes it didn’t seem like it was worth it. Between the time commitment, the constant soreness, and congestion it caused in my schedule there were multiple times I told myself, “this is the last season”. While I said that many times, it never happened because of the teammates I had. These people were and are some of my best friends to this day. The teammates in my class grew with me, we shared common struggles, and matured in parallel. Opposite us, were the older athletes who taught us lessons they had learned along the way. One senior, my freshman year, helped me to have the confidence to be the person that I am today. I am forever grateful to him. Track and Field as a whole, the sport, made me the person I am today.

Second, college taught me how to be an adult. From the little lessons such as time management to the larger lessons like how to grieve, those four years were a condensed masterclass on relationships, diagnoses, death, fear, and perseverance. Many share the same experience. Having a tight relationships with friends and teammates made it possible to learn our way through these challenges.

Third, a lesson called Elisabeth. I began learning this lesson around the time I realized I wasn’t cut out for General Chemistry. Ten years later, I am still figuring this one out, but I know she has taught me more than I could ever put on paper or type on a screen. I will leave it at that.

Conclusion

Hope College was an idyllic place. I was challenged beyond my dreams. It made me who I am now. I was given every opportunity to get ahead in life. I had a degree from a highly respected school, I looked like most of the people around me, I was of the same religion, and I had enough money to not appear “poor” (all of these things are superficial, but sadly carry a lot of weight in areas such as Western Michigan). Basically, I was set up to be well on course to succeed in Grand Rapids, Holland, or Kalamazoo. It could have been a seamless transition into the burgeoning medical field of Western Michigan. A great job at Stryker could have been in my future. I could have been selling bone saws to surgeons.

Hope College educated me well in the classroom, weight room, and sports field, but the biggest lessons were learned with dear friends throughout all hours of the day. While I didn’t always enjoy it or agree with it, it made me the person I am today.

While that is not the direction I took, Hope did educate me well. And for whatever it is worth, I do not regret taking a different direction. I am infinitely happy to have left Michigan, travelled the world, and set myself on the path I am currently on.


Note:
The direction I could have taken was available to me, but not to everyone that went to Hope College. I got a great education for reasons outside of my control. It definitely added to my success or potential success. I fit the template of a Hope College student. The programs catered to students like me. It is a great school, but it has its issues. - Cue the intense dissection of the educational system to Foucaultian standards.