Scientifically strategizing the ups and down

Honors Faculty Fellow James Blakemore knows there is much to discover about his students’ interests, but there’s one question he tends to avoid.

“I try not to ask students what they’re studying,” says Blakemore, who began his Honors Faculty Fellow appointment in January 2024. “It implies that they’ve already chosen their path, and we know that path can be subject to change.”

It’s setting this path — and deviating from it — that is at the core of Blakemore’s first-year honors seminar, “Success, Failure, and Science.”

Blakemore crafted the seminar topic based on expectations young people might have about being first-year undergraduate students.

“When students are starting off college, they’re thinking, ‘How can I be successful?’” Blakemore says. “They’re also thinking, ‘What happens if I fail? How will I get over it?’ I wanted the seminar topic to be broad but inclusive of things that would be useful to students.”

The “science” element comes through the use of the Individualized Development Plan (IDP), a goal-setting mechanism popular among those with scientific career aspirations. Blakemore has students identify experiences or activities they wish to explore in college, then develop an IDP with action items that build toward accomplishing a set goal.

Blakemore requires students to set goals that are concrete, manageable, and reflective of their range of interests.

“The sort of goals we’re talking about here are not ‘getting a job after you graduate,’” Blakemore says. “It might be figuring out what major they’d like to have or a club they’d like to join, and then laying out activities they can complete to reach that goal.”

The seminar is a space for tangible goal setting to occur, but also one in which students unpack a topic that can be uncomfortable to discuss: failure.

“We talk about how failure can be important if you think you want to do something and then it doesn’t work out,” Blakemore says. “Then, sometimes, you get the thing you wanted and realize it’s not really what you want.”

Current student Meron Abebe says that while she previously “saw failure as solely negative,” being in the seminar has broadened her outlook as she pursues her behavioral neuroscience and pre-medicine track of study.

“As I prepare to enter a field filled with trial and error, I’ve shifted my perspective to how I can learn from [failure] and improve,” Abebe says.

Students put their planning strategies to the test for Dec. 9’s First-Year Honors Seminar Symposium, where HNRS 190 students presented class projects that synthesized themes explored in the classroom. Last year’s cohort conducted a series of conversations with campus leaders including KU chancellor Doug Girod and the Spencer Museum of Art’s director Saralyn Reece Hardy about how they’d navigated successes and failures in their careers. Interviews then aired on KU’s radio station, KJHK, and were made available as podcast episodes.

This year’s students took a different direction, channeling their interests in the sciences with a presentation that involved flames, the color green, and a pop album.

“We came across this very dramatic demonstration of a green flame, produced from a metal ion being in fire,” Blakemore says. “The students became interested in a presentation revolving around the color, which prompted one student to bring up the album ‘Brat,’” an album by British singer Charli XCX known for its eye-catching green cover.

As students worked to bring these disparate elements together, Blakemore felt confident that what they’d learned about goals and plans would produce a final project to be proud of.

“I want them to put on a good show for their comrades, but also to learn something new,” Blakemore says.