Spring Break
One PowerPoint-karaoke too many
A senior's reflections on her college career
Morgan Akens
Issue date: 11/19/07 Section: ViewPoint
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College used to seem so important. My parents had certainly always preached that fact. Part of me even enjoyed the concept of college: an institution that is geared toward higher learning and furthering a person's education.
Shame what a letdown it was for me when the fantasy faded and I was left with the realization that school was mainly one huge test of my ability to store things in my short-term memory, function on very little sleep, hold down three part-time jobs at a time and stay awake during a hour-and-a-half-long PowerPoint-karaoke sessions eight times a week.
Let's start this rant off with the problems with the overall college curriculum. Such as why I, as a computer science major, have to take eight credit hours of science classes or why I have to retake simple mathematics classes when I had just taken those same mathematics classes in high school only a couple of years prior.
What exactly is the point of that? Having your GED or a high school diploma is a prerequisite for entering college, right? College already takes us forever to complete anyway, no one wants to waste their time on classes that are not relevant to their degree program.
In addition to the problems with the overall curriculum, I also feel that there are major problems with class structure as well.
Now this does not apply to all of the classes that I have taken during my college career, or even most, but when I do on occasion encounter these problems in class, it is always highly disappointing.
For starters, let's examine my deep hatred for quizzes.Every Monday, I have two back-to-back classes, each of which almost always have a quiz over the previous lecture and/or long, extensive, and in some cases outdated, readings. Sometimes I pass these quizzes and sometimes I fail miserably. Either way my grade on the quiz is totally dependent on whether or not I remember that particular part of the reading or the lecture, and on top of that I don't actually commit any of the information on the quiz to permanent memory.
What's worse, is when I fail a quiz, it does not make me try harder next time, because believe it or not, I probably tried in the first place with the study time that I had available to me, I just have a really bad memory. So what a failing quiz grade will do for me is when I go in to take the quiz the next week I will be doing so with a sense of fear and panic along with a lessened morale and a failed state of mind.
I have actually failed quizzes that I spent hours studying for, and aced quizzes that I spent 10 minutes on. I swear I think it is more about whether or not I let myself get psyched out while taking the quiz and less about how much I studied.
I see how many students generally only do what they can to get by and nothing more. But throwing a quiz at them every now and then is neither a good indication of lecture comprehension or intellect. And if you have to force students to study instead of genuinely sparking their interest, it is probably time to come up with another way to teach.
Here's another mind-set that bugs me about college: "College isn't here to teach you everything but rather to teach you to teach yourself." This statement came from one of my friend's professors when asked about why it felt like he really wasn't learning anything in school. What a shame, I am actually pretty good at teaching myself. I should have just stayed at home and saved some tuition money. I was teaching myself HTML (hyper text markup language) when I was 12 years old. However, for some reason HTML takes up a three-credit-hour course here at ETSU. And if that wasn't already pointless enough, HTML is actually outdated now. (And yes to be technical they claim it is XHTML but I know HTML when I see it - or at least that was the way the course was designed when I took it two years ago)
Now let's address what I like to call "PowerPoint Karaoke." If all that your class consists of is reading PowerPoint slides verbatim to the class, please do not make attendance mandatory, we are big boys and girls and we already know how to read, I would much rather just stay home.
It kills me when I think of how the idea of a college education, has become so huge in today's culture. I was recently watching an episode of "The Bachelor" on television, (yes, I know, I am ashamed to admit it but it is occasionally amusing) and on this particular episode the bachelor was visiting the various hometowns of the remaining bachelorettes and meeting their parents for the first time.
Brad Womack, this season's bachelor, age 34, is a successful millionaire who owns four bars and is in the early stages of developing a hotel. However, Womack is also a college dropout. During one hometown visit, Womack was questioned about his education by the parents of one of his dates, at which point he admitted that he had quit school early to pursue going into business for himself.
Even though you'd think a self-made millionaire would impress most parents, mommy and daddy seemed completely hung-up on Womack's revelation about his college career. "That is a great disappointment - I am sorry that is the level of education that he has at this point," said the father as an aside to the camera after Womack's confession. "It would be nice if he had a Ph.D."
It was amazing to me that this man who had done so much with his life and at such an early age was judged just because he was lacking the little piece of paper that said he had successfully completed those 120-something credit hours needed for a degree.
But isn't that supposed to be the point of college? To make us better, well-educated individuals. If a person can find success elsewhere what is wrong with that?
There are many professors that I have had that I have actually learned from during the course of my college career, and there are many intelligent professors who strive to make the learning process more hands-on with labs, projects and demonstrations. But I feel compelled to make these points for I am afraid that we have become too accepting of the way things currently are. There are so many times that I feel slightly cheated due to a class that I didn't feel was a beneficial use of my time.
I think that we all get so wrapped up in making good grades and just making it through to graduation that we eventually forget why we came here in the first place.
But to end this column on a high note, maybe I am looking at all of this in the wrong way.
It was pointed out to me by the East Tennessean's viewpoint editor after reading "Morgan's I-Am-Fed-Up-With-College-and-Ready-to-Graduate Rant, Version 1.0," that to him, college was not solely about class studies but more about what happens outside the classroom.
In the end, to save myself and the readers from another huge ranting column, that is going to have to be the sentiment that I hold on to as I look forward to putting on that goofy-looking mortar board and robe and prancing across the stage at my graduation in a month, and less about how college, at times, has disappointed me.
That is, at least, provided I don't fail another computer ethics quiz.