Jack Lieblein is an advisory board member at the Open Discourse Coalition.
As a 2026 college graduate, I have some advice for the students heading to class this fall. Whether you are an incoming freshman or a fifth-year senior, find a course or program that teaches debate and discourse. It may end up the most meaningful part of your college experience. And it will help you succeed in whatever career you pursue.
I speak from experience. Two years ago, as a junior at Bucknell University, I signed up for a noncredit course known as a leadership seminar, sponsored by an independent organization called the Open Discourse Coalition and recommended by an alumnus I respect. The seminar met for eight hours every Saturday in September: The immersion approach aimed to provide a semester’s worth of learning in a shorter time frame. I was wary of giving up so much freedom, but the alumnus told me I would not regret it.
He was right. Each Saturday, I and 20 other students gathered to talk about leadership — its nature, its meaning, its application. We were divided into four groups and assigned historical leaders to analyze. Each team evaluated its figure, then presented its findings and facilitated a 90-minute class discussion. The professor and our peers challenged my group’s conclusions, forcing us to defend our claims with textual evidence. At times, we had to acknowledge that we were wrong.
The experience was often uncomfortable, but it was also eye-opening. Whether I was leading or participating in the discussion, I found myself asking: How do I convince my peers to agree with me? How do I show respect to the guy who keeps pushing my buttons? Am I man enough to admit my own mistakes? Is trying to win the debate worth getting angry or overheated — or do I want to get a beer with everyone afterward?
Before the first Saturday session was over, I was hooked. I was learning so much more than I could from a textbook. And I was shocked that my education to that point had not encouraged me to engage in meaningful debate. Everyone needs to learn how to argue well, disagree respectfully, reach consensus and preserve friendship in the face of differences. No one should think they are always right, that the best arguments are flame wars on X, that their interlocutors are lesser creatures. Yet most of my education either sent such messages or did not dispute them. My classmates all told me they felt the same way. That is no preparation for a life well lived.
Nor is it preparation for career success. If you are going to be a doctor, you need a good bedside manner. If you plan to work in wealth management, you need to know how to woo clients. Nearly every job — even virtual ones — involves regular human contact. You are going to disagree with people. You are going to have difficult discussions. If you are ill-equipped to handle it, your work is going to be a lot harder and your path upward a lot steeper.
Hence my advice to students heading to class this fall. A growing number of schools offer debate- and discourse-focused programs. Find them, take them, demand more of them. Dartmouth, for instance, now trains every freshman in how to have productive dialogue. Lucky them. But most students will have to work harder to find programs that teach them how — and how not — to disagree.
Students need this — and so does society. Recent polling has found that 9 in 10 undergraduate students think “words can be violence.” That view risks encouraging actual violence when students encounter tough discussions and opposing views, as they inevitably will. But lowering the cultural temperature is not necessarily a goal that will attract 18-year-olds heading to college. Their biggest concern is likely how to get ahead in life. If that describes you, the best thing you can do is spend your time in college learning how to engage with people of opposing views. You will not regret it — but you will wonder why you never learned it before.
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