Education with Purpose, Rigor, and Joy

Less important than which fields of study and/or careers you decide to pursue is that you pursue them with the utmost effort, commitment, and rigor. Adopting this rigor will enhance your chances of fulfilling your inner potential and maximizing your contributions to society. Don’t simply pursue a topic until you have the illusion of understanding it (which can happen with superficial engagement); pursue it to its depth and essence. Remember that rigor does not mean rigidity: pursue your chosen fields to the greatest extent and depth while remaining flexible and open to unexpected, yet promising, directions. In all of this, prioritize centering joy and leading with your passions and interests—fall in love with the journey and the questions, not the destination or specific answers. If you don’t yet know what your passions or interests are, reflect on the things that excite you, and talk to people who are doing those things (or related things) to learn from them and sharpen your understanding of what’s possible. In short: do what makes you excited—and give it everything, while maintaining a spirit of intellectual humility and submission.

Thinking about a problem to solve in the world and exploring that more deeply will help you identify many different fields, career paths, etc. Committing yourself to a problem—be it tackling climate change, or income inequality, or something else—can also naturally drive you towards building expertise across multiple areas, and their intersections. Reading and talking to experts working on different problems may also enhance your curiosity and desire to learn more.

With AI advancing and much of it built upon the premise of understanding English, building skills in technologies and languages—particularly English—will be important. It is tempting to think that, surrounded by so many technological advances, social and humanistic disciplines like the arts, history, and others will no longer be important. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Explore these fields alongside technologically-oriented ones as doing so can help ground us and cultivate critical human literacies, like empathy, that may be increasingly important in the future. Complementing these fields with technology skills may expand them in new ways, and also inspire the discovery and sharing of new knowledge.

Across many fields, AI is increasingly doing a lot more of the work that humans were once solely responsible for. Still, human creativity and intuition are important for determining what's important—i.e., what should the AI even be asked to do? Which tasks or activities are worth doing to begin with? What's worth building with AI? etc. AI can help inform these decisions of course, but humans must still ultimately set the agenda. And as AI produces more first drafts of work—written outputs, code, and other artifacts—humans must be able to evaluate and determine whether what was produced is "good" or not: whether it addresses the underlying problem / opportunity it was meant to address; whether it does so effectively and ethically; and, if improvements are needed, which kinds of improvements would be most helpful. Determining what's important and good requires deep understanding of domains (to truly understand the problem space) and a broad understanding across domains (to have adequate reference points).

Seek to be “T”- or “Pi”-shaped — achieve a breadth of knowledge and experience across fields, and select one or two to dive deeply into. These deeper dives may be methodological areas (e.g. different trades, specific technical skills), social issues (climate change, education, inequality), or other areas. Multiple deep dives may increase the likelihood of finding novel ways to address old challenges in society, and being able to assess what promising or less-promising ideas are—especially when working in tandem with others (and/or AI tools).

As emphasized in the Peterson lecture—develop yourselves in ways that will help you acquire and apply new knowledge continuously and effectively as the world continues to change. This may include building new metacognitive skills, like learning more about how you learn best—i.e., which conditions, environments, and other factors help you untap the most of your potential—and designing your learning journey with these in mind.

Higher education can be polarizing: some may believe that the only path to a successful future is through an elite university, and others are questioning the value and monetary return on investment of university education altogether. A university education can help expand one’s mind and achieve the above purpose of education, and elite universities—while not the only pathways for doing so—can galvanize these efforts by embedding students in environments full of other people excited to learn and discover new knowledge. But these are not the only places where one can find such environments. Make seeking out these enriching environments (and not achieving specific brands on your resume) your goal—and reach out if you would like guidance on how to do so. Pursue environments that will maximize your chances to fulfill the purpose of education and contribute in valuable and meaningful ways in this world. Think of the cost of education as an investment, and factor in expected future incomes—but also, the expansion of your mind, ability to understand and serve God’s creation, capacity to think critically, and other outcomes—when trying to calculate the potential return on that investment. Remember, higher education can help prepare you for your career, but career preparation is not its only goal. Higher education has intrinsic value when we consider other purposes beyond career prep. Similarly, achieving career excellence will require much more than what you learn in the classrooms of higher educational institutions.

Despite the tremendous amount of technological progress we are witnessing every day, poverty and inequality continue to abound; climate change is threatening the future health of our planet; and socio-political and cultural polarization continue to make dialogue and productive discussion across lines of difference difficult. Today’s progressive forces are often accompanied by regressive and polarizing ones. Be mindful of these forces as you engage in learning, and where possible, seek to bridge them. This can be at the level of systems, but also, individuals: for example, be mindful of how what you are learning might enable you to offer support to those facing challenging circumstances, and mobilize your knowledge to their benefit. Help others, and open yourself up to help, too.

Research continues to show that our social connections can have a dramatic impact on our learning and future life trajectories—often even more than the schools we attend or the individual classes or other opportunities we pursue. Think of learning as an inherently social process. Decide which schools to attend not just based on what classes they offer or what physical resources they have, but also, what you can learn from individuals (people) there—and what they might learn from you. Do this not in an instrumentalist way, but grounded in a deep and genuine desire to learn from others and their wisdom. Embrace networks full of diverse views about the world to realize the importance of pluralism in a personal way. Of course, given their power, choose these networks wisely. And lend your hand particularly to those who are vulnerable, so that they may also realize the power of connection in improving their own quality of life.

Learning starts from before you are born and continues throughout life; pursue learning as a lifelong journey, and help others do the same. This includes engaging in activities like reading for pleasure, which can slow your mind; foster empathy; prompt reflection and a deeper search for meaning; and offer reprieve from screen time and other forces that become harmful in excess.

Emerging research is highlighting the adverse impact that an overreliance on AI can have on how our brains work; our ability to deeply learn new material; and even the nuance we capture from research and other forms of knowledge. In many contexts, especially in a capitalist economy, productivity is king, and friction is something to be eliminated at all costs. Yet friction—struggling through reading a dense research paper; taking the time to deeply immerse one’s self in a long book; struggling to get the words right to communicate a specific message while writing an essay—can help advance learning and build critical thinking muscles. All friction and struggle are not bad. Develop a framework for determining which frictions are beneficial for your learning and growth, and embrace those frictions, even if the more “efficient” or “productive” thing is to try and automate it away. And of course, do not automate away the things that bring you joy. Just because you can automate something, doesn’t mean you should.

Amelia Erhart said: “Some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take off. But if you don't have one, realize it is your responsibility to grab a shovel and build one for yourself and for those who will follow after you.” Parental engagement is an essential part of a child’s learning journey, as parents play an essential role in nurturing ethical frameworks, curiosity, and service-mindedness in their children. Engaging with other parents is incredibly valuable not just for the well-being of children, but also for building strong, supportive, and resilient communities. In the context of our community, where values like unity, shared responsibility, and collective upliftment are central, parent-to-parent engagement becomes even more important. All of this, of course, must be done in a way that balances high expectations with the risk of creating “toxic achievement culture”—making undue comparisons and/or placing so much pressure on children that they lose their intrinsic joy and desire to learn. Parents should have high expectations for their children, but remember to reward effort alongside outcomes.

The late Aga Khan IV said that “...the replacement of fear by hope is probably the single most powerful trampoline of progress.” We are living in a time of what may feel like destabilizing forces. There is much to be cautious about; much that can feel scary. Yet it is also a time of excitement, where we have an opportunity to build and shape—and not just accept—what comes next. If we channel this hope, instead of succumbing to or being driven by our fears, Insha’Allah we will be able to make the most of these times and help others do the same.