LaunchCats is a co-curricular student organization focused on identifying problems, proposing solutions & launching ventures. Starting as an idea to reinvent a business class, LaunchCats has created a platform for creative expression without boundaries. For example, our last 'event' featured an artist freely experimenting with mediums, musicians playing original work, a pastry designer artistically designing cookies, a cinematographer creating video, a photo journalist creatively documenting ambiance, facilitators speaking and designing curriculum and 25+ participants of differentiated majors brainstorming solutions collaboratively. Students are voluntarily engaging themselves in this unique concept because they believe in the value of organically learning from each other. In addition, students are acquiring a network of forward thinking, motivated peers. Personal growth and progression are developed when a student is vulnerable, creativity is a correlation of curiosity and a simple idea is capable of changing the world. The LaunchCats platform is an education revolution allowing freedom and identity in a white wash academia.
As technology progresses and the psychographic wiring of students changes, specifically millennials, we are niether engaged nor motivated to learn in a stagnant system. Education was once a privilege desired by all for well being and increased opportunity. What was then a luxury is now a systematic approach to conformity. I would argue that after high school, college is the next step to a perceived obligation. Are we doing it for ourselves anymore? Opportunities and experiences to inspire and advance personal growth are hard to find on campuses today. How does education become an infatuation for raw, unmitigated intellect seeked out by ones individual will power? Can these cognitive and conative morsels evolve into aggregate concepts; collaboration in an ever changing world is key. Creation is at the intersection of design, engineering and entrepreneurship. By breaking down barriers and rethinking 'thinking' we can better understand why knowledge is power when learning is imperative. This is an education revolution ( eduRev ).
We are the game changers, inventors, choice architects and design thinkers of a new generation. While our elders refer to the millennials as a hopeless generation, we have the power to reinvent culture, currency, technology and social economics, stemming from a co-curricular education system. I foresee a student run class room in which there are no teachers. Students abide by task identity and honest integrity to get the most out of their education by learning and teaching each other music, art, engineering, science, business and philosophy. By learning practical and abstract concepts, rational and irrational thinking and developing a sense of a limitless frontier, the power of an idea is infinite. At Montana State University, an education revolution is in the making one step at a time. Fortunately, 30 exponential steps will take us to the sun. The future is bright for those who ideate. innovate. create.
- Sam Lucas