Succeeding the Focused Way

When I was an undergraduate in occupational therapy, part of our classes were at the medical center and part at Teachers College. I lived on the main campus. I found that returning to college after a break of working for a year to gain funds was a real challenge for me.

Inevitably, I would find that going to the medical library on 168th St. and going to the Teachers College library wound up being very distracting. I used to say that I learned a lot by reading all kinds of stuff, not very much of it related to why I went to the library – to study or research something.

I finally found the perfect solution – the Law Library. I loved the copy of Rodin’s statue in front of the building, but the real reason it enabled my success is that there was utterly nothing in the entire library that I was remotely interested in reading. I thus was able to stay focused on my goal: to complete my studies and absorb the material on which I would be tested. Interestingly enough, I also did not find the young men who labored there for their own courses the least bit interesting or attractive. I do think it provided me the perfect learning environment for staying focused on my work and for succeeding brilliantly. So brilliantly, in fact, that I later returned as a faculty member for the same program from which I graduated (occupational therapy).