The Paradox of Experiential Learning in Higher Education

Abstract

According to the conventional wisdom in higher education today, doing an internship in college boosts a student’s chances for landing a good job after graduation. At my own university, well over half the undergraduates do at least one and many do several. Another common belief is that students with serious social and political commitments do some sort of service-learning or civic engagement in college: volunteering in a battered women’s shelter, going on an Alternative Spring Break, canvassing for a favored cause. More and more students enroll in study-abroad programs, experiencing other cultures intensively and firsthand. Many conduct original research, sometimes in laboratories or libraries, sometimes in local or distant communities, sometimes in collaboration with a faculty member, sometimes on their own. Observers use a variety of terms to describe these kinds of educational activities: experiential, community-based, engaged. Whatever the label, experience-based, nonclassroom learning in its many forms has become more and more widespread in American colleges and universities, more and more a conventional, almost taken-for-granted element of students’ educations (cf. Qualters, 2010; Perlin, 2011 ).