“We’re All Students, and Always Will Be”

I LOVE what Yong Lee (@yongclee) said in response to my last post, so I wanted to highlight it here:

I have to go the cop-out route here and say, “it depends on who’s looking.”

To some, “student” might be a label used to pour an unknown person into a mold of expected knowledge and ability. Their loss.

To others (and hopefully more so with the “young/forward” set that you mention), cred comes from what you do and what you’re trying to do, not so much what’s on your bio.

It takes a lot of time to form an (accurate) impression of someone. I think you will run into people who take the ‘student’ prefix to mean that they can de-value the words/thoughts/actions of said student, but I think your work will ultimately speak for itself. That goes the other way, too: if students don’t take on a more proactive role, then maybe it’s a fitting judgment that they could use more seasoning before their words/thoughts/actions carry more weight.

Ideally (because I’m an idealist), we’re ALL students, and always will be.