"Learning must be painful for it to be meaningful"

I had the privilege of being in Professor Lowi’s first class when he returned to Cornell [from University of Chicago]. It was the first week of September 1972, and my second day of college. Something Professor Lowi said that day has stayed with me forever: “Learning must be painful for it to be meaningful.” I remember thinking, Oh please, just tell us what the required reading is and when the exams are and cut the drama.  I’d like to remember that I thought, Cut out the zen-master crap, but I wouldn’t have known that phrase then, so I’ll just have to file that under wishful remembering.

Long story short...guess what fact I have run into, sometimes crashed into, over and over throughout the past 46 years?  Learning must be painful for it to be meaningful.

Imagine that...even though at seventeen I knew everything there was to know, Professor Lowi knew even more.

Bill Thom

College of Arts and Sciences

Cornell Class of 1976