Upon entering university, what should the average tertiary student hope to learn? Ross McKenzie investigates.

(Ross McKenzie is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Queensland.)

An address given at the Annual Academic Awards Dinner, Cromwell College, University of Queensland, August 22, 2006.

Thank you for this opportunity to reflect a little on academic life. It is good to acknowledge achievement, not just academia. I hope we can reflect a little of what one is hoping to gain from a university education. I think a primary value is learning to think for oneself, learning to evaluate critically what one is learning and ones environment. A friend of my wife and mine recently told us that it was only in her third year at university that she actually learnt to think for herself. In her first two years, she just memorised material and regurgitated it in exams, and passed.

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