November 17, 2004

• I slid by with easy As in high school, 3.9 GPA, got a (decent) 1260 on my SAT, etc., but mechanical engineering college (Clemson U.) kicked my butt. I pulled 7 all-nighters my junior year and barely got Cs. I was happy enough to graduate with a 2.6 GPA. I can't say that I had a whole lot of fun, except I learned that sleep deprivation can lead to some pretty interesting hallucinations. Now I'm a code monkey. Go figure.
• My experience was very much like what the article describes. My high school was not very demanding, and I graduated with a 3.9 GPA. 1560 SAT, college was more of the same. However, the school I attended regularly put more than 25% of students on the dean's list. I sometimes wish that I had attended a more academically demanding school, but I don't know if that would have affected where I am today.
• I'm not one to study: I didn't in high school, and I very rarely did in college. If I don't learn it the first time through (ie, during class), I don't learn it at all. Period. I think I managed a B+ overall in college (at an Ivy). I didn't necessarily party all the time (although senior year is pretty much a blur of daiquiris and beirut), but I sure wasn't studying. I don't know what this says, either about me or about college in general.
• depends on how smart you are.
• Depends on the school i think. Everyone I went to school with and those who are still going suffer through the last quarter at the Art Institute of Seattle. Portfolio 2 class is like taking the final 4 weeks of 8 other classes. Great fun. The rest of it wasn't as hard, but there were still quite a few late nights.
• My impression is that at most schools, even the ones with good reputations, there are paths you can take that will allow you to coast. There are certainly some schools were it is much easier to coast, and there are some schools that still do kick just about everybody's asses, regardless. I went to a hard school, and it kicked my ass. This is a good thing though, because I am a lazy git, and I need to have my ass kicked in order to get anything done. I believe that I could have learned just as much at an easier school, but it would have involved a lot more self-motivation. That I don't have.
• I coasted through Computer Engineering, getting, as I have said elsewhere, what amounts to a degree in Newspaper Slacking. There were two kinds of classes: those you could still pass without doing any of the assigned work, and those you couldn't. I got A's and B's in the first kind, D's and F's to the other, for a final GPA of about 2.5 -- but I didn't graduate. I actually learned a lot more about computers and programming outside class, reading books and programming on my own.
• I meant to add this to the fpp - a new report on american education and how the system is designed to hold back gifted students: A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America
• Interesting link elykcooks (the Nation Decieved one.) I personally was prevented from skipping grades three times (all in elementary and middle school) because it was considered unfair to the other students who did more work than I did, but didn't do as well. My school district also cut back funding for the gifted program and forced all the kids to be more "normal." Needless to say once I reached high school I was pretty jaded about the whole thing.
• I coasted through high school and semi-coasted through college (small school, biology major) - I did read and do the work that was assigned, but I didn't spend 4 hours a day staring at books and highlighting things, like some of the others seemed to do. Matter of fact, I got sniped at regularly by one of my roommates because she had to study and I didn't. Ahh, interpersonal politics. Of course, I only graduated cum laude and am a total failure in life now, so it wasn't because I was teh smrt. Maybe my school was coasty, but I really don't know. I think I just test well, or something. Anyway, although my school wasn't a party school, it did vary quite a bit. Some people studied constantly and some (like me) just went to class as if it were high school.
• I graduated in 92. In March of my sophomore year, I skipped class for the whole month. Junior and Senior year I skipped well over fifty times per semester, surpassing 100 times at least once. I wrote my 25-30 page senior paper in one sitting. I fault myself and not the school for this, but it would have been nice if it was impossible to do that and still get through. I think high school and college should be structured more like the working world. Isn't that what they say they are preparing us for?
• College is what you make of it here where I am, (art school), so basically it means that if you're working your ass off, as I am right now, you are getting some real satisfaction out of it. If you're not working hard and are in an easy major...things are different.
• We used to have a saying: at college you can get good grades, good friends, or good sleep. Choose two. I took the friends and sleep path, and it paid off for me. Despite a 2.75 GPA I ended up with a job I like in the field I'm interested in, and I wouldn't trade those 4 years for anything in the world. Unless you're planning on going to medical school, I'd suggest not overworking yourself in college. Learning to write a 20 page paper the night before it's due is a valuable life skill. So is the art of BSing your way through any obstacle. These things have helped me much more in life than Astronomy 101 and Intermediate Microeconomics 313. If that doesn't convince you, this might: My friend Dave failed out of college twice. Once, as a computer science major, for failing his math requirement, and once again, as a history major, for failing Italian. He went home and found a job that required a computer programmer who spoke Italian. He's now Vice President and partner in the company after only 3 years. Go forth, and learn the skills that matter!
• University is very much what you make of it. Been through four years of undergraduate, two and a bit years of graduate, and now I'm a TA. My students are only marked on two essays and one exam. They have readings for every week, but whether they do them, and how long they spend on them are entirely up to the student. Of course, it will show out in the exam and the essays who did the readings well. But not that much - the lectures are probably enough for the exam, and the papers don't take that much time (more than half the class will probably write their 10 pager after thanksgiving - and it's due Dec 3). The only real difference is on their inner lives. My understanding of the world changes when I study well - when I read things I don't have to, I grow. (I think more than if I read the same thing when it's required, but I have to be more self disciplined and read more outside of required). The ideal of university is that your understanding of the world (or at least a slice of it, be it physics or literature) is greater than when you began. How much greater is up to you. That said, I did probably about 20 - 30 hours of prep in undergrad - not every week. Some weeks it was 10 hours, some weeks it was 60-100. Outside prep is much higher in the humanities than science, which have more labtime, classtime, etc. Did it make a difference? Probably - I graduated top of my major, with good reccomendations (but still can't spell). If I hadn't, I might have done well, but Bs, instead of As. That mattered to me, because by then I wanted to go to graduate school, and needed good funding. But if I had wanted to go straight into work, maybe the sacrafices (I almost wrecked my health with my overwork at the end of terms, and working all summer for jobs, and still have a lot of energy/depression issues that are hurting my current work) wouldn't have been worth it. That said - when students don't do their readings and don't care, it just wrecks it for those of us who do (and I say this based on being a student in seminar as well as a teacher). So if you're a student, at least pretend you care. Look at the title of the readings and make something up - say anything. Of course, you might just sound stupid. But you're the one who decided not to do the reading. I just feel like it's a contract - the concientious students and the professor/ta bust their butts creating a positve learning experience for you, so you should at least have the courtesy to put in a half effort, and gloss it over by practicing your "this is really interesting face" - very useful should you ever find yourself in some colloquium where you don't even know what is going on.
• jb, not all profs bust their butts to create a postive learning experience. I put in roughly the amount of effort my prof does. A good prof means I'll work harder while a lousy one means I'll totally coast. In any event, I never pour over books trying to memorize them. Rarely do I read over something more than once. I just don't do it. Often, too, I avoid finishing readings I'm not interested in. On the other hand, if a prof asks the class to read an excerpt from, say, On Liberty, and I find I'm interested in it, I'll read the whole thing, not just the bit in the anthology. Then I'll go out and read the rest of Mill's work, even if it doesn't have anything to do with the class. I spend almost no time on studying and very little time on actual homework, and I don't care all that much about my grades. My story is very much like uncleozzy's in that respect. That said, I do manage to get good grades, so it doesn't seem to be too dumb, strategy-wise. At least for me. As an aside, I don't think university classes are even close to the best way to learn. The reading I did in the summer stimulated and influenced my thinking far more than most of what I've read in my classes.
• I worked pretty hard pretty much all of the time during my first four years. (In between beer, music, and cricket, of course.) I foolishly did a double major, too, which meant more work. I then applied for a scholarship for which the University compared GPAs and references across all subjects and departments -- the best numbers win the money. I came out no. 1, which was the first time anyone from Humanities had done this in over 20 years. So, you know, probably didn't have to work as hard as I did, but it got me to the Sorbonne and stuff.
• Heh. Wait 'til you get to grad school. I'm ~halfway through my master's and it's a joke. I'm thinking of getting a PhD on the theory that it's far easier than working. (Plus I can practice music all day, go to shows every night, and play shows on the weekends.) Fuck college.
• I also busted my butt in undergrad. I worked very long hours, seven days a week all the time except the holidays. Fortunately, unlike jb, I had the summers off, preventing me wrecking my health. I think they actually worked us too hard in my universit, but I'd never have accused them of holding us to low standards.
• I didn't have to work too hard in high school, but I didn't ditch either and at the very least I skimmed all the reading. I got about an A-, don't remember the SAT score but I was happy with it. Once I hit college I figured out pretty quickly that I had to work twice as hard to do half as well. I busted my ass and gradually developed good study skills somewhere around my sophomore year of college. Once I figured out how to use my time I could relax and enjoy both the studying and the partying my junior and senior years. That second year in college was pretty brutal though. I'm glad I did it, not only did I learn a lot more than I would've otherwise but I also developed an appreciation for learning that had nothing to do with grades. I graduated with the same GPA I'd had in high school plus a membership in Phi Beta Kappa (which got me the job I have now).
• Um. I only performed in nine shows during my finals year at uni. That was one less than the previous year. And I was only a writer on four of them. And I made a special effort to not go to every after-show party on at the theatre. And I only edited the theatre section of the student newspaper for half the year. I did find time to fall hopelessly in unrequited love, but I made sure I stuck to a strict schedule of moping. And I went to... some lectures. Alright, I dicked around for most of my time in college, then revised (okay, vised; there was no "re" about it) like buggery in the weeks and nights before my exams, and made it out okay. I was, in short, an utter cliché. But a cliché with a good degree, so I can take it. Still pisses me off when people criticise students for partying and dilettanting around and not studying properly. Most other people I knew worked hard...
• Hey, I did exactly like flashboy. Except for the 'vised' part. And jb's post got me thinking: I really went to my school at the worst possible time: I didn't give a shit, but most of my profs didn't, either. They were all dot-com boom and stuff. And there was this guy, teaching computer security. This Man was the Ultimate Coaster, of the old school sort: he was almost 70, sleepwalking through his courses until his fucking pension would equal his salary. That man is my Hero.
• stet - DON'T. Not if you think it is easy. I say this as a Ph.D. student who just went 48 hours with 4 hours sleep, to finish a coloquium paper. A Ph.D. is hell in any discipline. Some places are easy on the masters (at least, my current uni is - my last uni a masters was harder than a Ph.D. because they crammed it into one year, coursework and thesis), but nowhere is easy on a Ph.D. Some people are brilliant, and things come to them more easily. But not that easily. As a masters student, you are still just a student - but as a Ph.D. you have to actually impress your advisor and others, or you don't have a future. I haven't done that yet - still have to see if I have a future. Smo - I know, not every prof tries the same. I'm biased - I went to an undergrad uni where teaching was very important, and then last month just watched my advisor give detailed comments for every single one of 50 essays (other profs here don't even take a section, let alone mark everyone's paper), and got them back in a week too. (I only did comments for my 21 students - he did them for my sections and his). But most do care and put in the effort. In my experience, I've only been in one class where I felt the TA/prof didn't spent a lot of time preparing (a TA in that case) - and in many where it was the students who made the experience worse.
• I don't know if it's partying as much as it is everything else. I work full-time and go to school part-time, and I suppose I'm not taking my full educational opportunities as I don't have the time to discuss anything with anybody outside of class, and the whole play and museum thing is hard to do when I have to spend Saturday and Sunday catching up with Monday-Friday's studying. In my experience, most of the challenging classes I've taken have been small ones with less than 30 students; I've taken literature classes at a community college that were far more engaging than some of the ones I took in university, because the class was small and the instructor was genuinely interested in what she was teaching and tried to pass it on.
• I've always coasted. I'm coasting right now! It's what I do. That said, I really regret it. I don't think I learned half as much as I could have - I mean really learned, and discussed and thought and things like that. I got great marks, got into law school, am now in graduate law school - but I don't feel like I really *know* anything. It might be the low self-esteem thing, but I do think there's a lot of truth to it. That said, killing yerself ain't worth it. My friend Becky worked her ass off, all the time, constantly. And she was plenty smart enough to not need to. While she probably knows some stuff I don't, she had no bullshit meter - she'd study just as hard for the ridiculous courses as the important ones. And she didn't date and so only now is finding a partner, etc. Things like that. I may be a coaster, but I've made good friends, met my husband, and loved life. (Now, if the 30pp and 40pp papers I have due in less than a month could just be done, magically, via the power of coasting, that would be good. Heh).