the truth about college
I found this video today along with this article.
I hope people realize how much truth there is to this video. It pretty much explains my life, that’s for sure. Except for the part about sleep - that’s 5-6 hours on a good night.
While I’ve tried to make a conscious effort to leave my laptop at home and pay more attention in class, I can’t get by without my iPhone (or my Blackberry previously). I wrote about some of this last year, but this video has made me realize how sad some of these realities actually are.
Of my 5 classes this semester, I think 2 of the professors will know my name on a good day.
Of the 850 minutes I spend in class each week, I would venture to guess at least 1/2 are spent concentrating on trying to look like I’m paying attention when I’m really trying my hardest not to fall asleep.
Why don’t/can’t I pay attention in some classes? Frankly, Wikipedia explains some most concepts better and deeper than they’re presented in class. How do you really expect me to stay awake as you talk at me for 50-75 minutes straight about something I’m only mildly (if that) interested in?
Which classes do I enjoy the most? Which classes do I find to be most worth my while? The classes with no more than 20 students where we sit around a long table and you, professor, facilitate the discussion. I might actually read the books you assign to us. I might actually make it a point to go to every single class instead of looking for any excuse to miss. Because in your small discussion class I’m not just a number or a filled seat. You know who I am and you expect something of me. You expect me to be prepared and able to participate. You expect more of me than the ability to sit in a chair and focus on the front of the room. You realize I’m more than just a thoughtless drone.
Scantron exams? Of course I can manage to pick the correct bubble when given 3 choices and all I have to do is recall which of those sounds familiar. How about asking me to write a paper instead? How about allowing me to think for myself and learn the material on a deeper level than memorizing facts and figures?
Of course I try to “get by.” Apart from the handful of classes I can count as immensely valuable to my academic education (all were small discussions, by the way), the best lessons I’ve learned have been outside of the classroom. So why wouldn’t I focus my attention on those “extracurricular” things?
This article came at a most interesting time, considering I spent a good portion of one of my classes today creating a panorama on my phone. That speck down there is our professor. Normally in a classroom of this size, laptops would be open, but there isn’t any wi-fi in this particular room. Instead, you can find students doing the crossword, eating lunch, doing other homework, texting, or catching some much needed Z’s.
Am I complaining? Not particularly. I’m perfectly fine with “getting by” because I know that once I’ve finished “getting by” I’ll be able to do something that actually lets me use my brain. Once I’ve finished class for the day, I can go back to reading that book I’ve heard so much about or I can go to one of my extracurricular activities where I can actually use my idling brain. Ideally though? Ideally I wouldn’t have to pay $50,000 to sit in a lecture hall for 50-75 minutes twiddling my thumbs or exercising my ability to stay awake.
Forever-Digital is a look inside the life and mind of 
Dr. Michael Wesch at KSU, the guy who made this and some other YouTube videos, is doing some amazing stuff with online media and education. Check out some of his other stuff - http://mediatedcultures.net/
so very, very true. I slept through every one of my classes senior year at least once. Trying to stay awake just got too hard and I didn’t see the point anymore. Some classes I just went to because I knew I could get in a good nap.
Expensive naps, but not nearly as expensive as yours!
aw man. at my obscure, small, not-terribly-exclusive college, almost all of my classes have had 10-25 people and most of my professors have known my name. i’ve taken a few sucky classes because of foolishness and mediocre professors, but otherwise they’ve been worth my time.
i’ve actually had to learn a lot of useful stuff exactly because my college is flawed. i think maybe this has been the case for you too. in order to get a good education, i need to figure things out for myself - i’ve learned about how the college works, the history and politics of the people involved, the pedagogical strategies, the budget issues, who to talk to, etc., in order to figure out how to get what i want and how to make the college better. aaand so much of this is transferable to community/product management. so it can be a good thing in disguise, at least a little bit. i mean, if your school was perfect, you might not have looked for the opportunities to do the awesome stuff that you do. hehee. at least that’s the kind of thing i tell myself.
Well jeez, Britta - way to go and put everything into perspective!
Really, I think I’ve learned so much that will help me in “the real world” during my time here. It’s just a shame that the majority of it was learned outside of the classroom. I’ve definitely learned a great deal from learning the ins and outs of college, as you’ve mentioned and I agree that it will be immensely beneficial, but it would have been nice to feel like I got a lot out of the more academic aspects of school, you know? There are times here and there where I can look back and appreciate learning a particular topic in a particular class, but I don’t think that it’s true for most of my courses. I feel like I could have learned so much more!
Maybe it’s just the senior in me talking. Only 206 days to learn everything I can from this place!
i feel like i should have gotten a lot more out of college too! i look at the list of classes i’ve taken and it looks so lame and skimpy. i wish i could have been able to handle more classes per quarter, like some people i know can. different kind of problem, same kind of feeling.