It’s 1:25 a.m. and I am moderately overcome with self-loathing. I’m just starting this column — technically due a few hours ago — because, despite staring at a blank Microsoft document for two hours tonight, I couldn’t come up with a topic for the piece. In hopes of finding inspiration, I opted to walk to the Amphitheater at midnight to engage in political discourse with a couple of friends. For an hour and a half, we debated about institutionalized racism, whether or not dialogue can actually be an impetus for social change and political inactivity at the University.
I will pay for this excursion and error in judgment in the morning. I’ve got an alarm set for 6 a.m. so I can read an extensive amount of literature for two of my classes, both of which involve pop-reading quizzes and cold-calling from the professor. Studying for my impending exam also sounds none-too-appealing right now — and will undoubtedly feel worse tomorrow afternoon. My grades in all of these classes will suffer, and I have no one to blame but myself.
I’m not a bad student — whatever that means. I don’t procrastinate or slack off or disregard my assigned readings in favor of “Parks and Recreation” or “Game of Thrones.” I don’t even have Netflix. My past few Friday and Saturday nights have been spent in libraries — hello, midterms — and I can’t remember the last time I let myself sleep in. I am determined to produce work I am truly proud of and I put in a good-faith effort to adhere to due dates. However, sometimes my perfectionism gets me in trouble with deadlines.
A couple of days ago, I was assigned a take-home, six-page midterm paper for my Global Issues of Security and Justice class. The prompt was a broad one, asking me to take a stance on whether or not fostering global empathy is enough to eliminate the tension and mistrust that leads to warfare. The paper I ended up submitting was over a day late and two pages over the limit. Initially four pages too long, I opted not to shorten it further in order to preserve the integrity of my argument: global conflict is rooted in biologically-based personality differences between men and women — it answers the prompt, I promise. It was a piece with which, at the end of the day, I was extremely happy. And although I became interested in exploring the paper topic and learned a lot more than I would have if I had strictly followed the guidelines, I will probably be heavily docked points for the length and lateness.
I understand the importance of deadlines and following instructions in the proverbial “real” world. People will rely on me to get my work done because my progress begets their progress begets world bureaucratic progress — at least in theory. I also understand my professors have my best interests at heart when assigning impromptu reading quizzes because, sure enough, if those accountability checks weren’t in place, I probably wouldn’t do the reading on time. But I’m also upset by the notion that I just spent an hour and a half in the Amphitheater fleshing out issues that really matter — issues that impact both the University populace and the entire nation — and that my grades will register this time — spent doing something other than my homework — negatively.
During the entire debate with my friends, I had to actively suppress my common sense yelling obscenities at me for wasting free time that shouldn’t have been free time. The only reason I could justify staying in the Amphitheater was the thought that this internal conflict would be the topic of today’s column.
I’ve been told that college should be less about what you learn and should instead cultivate how you learn. Yet this is seldom how our University functions in practice. In that hour-and-a-half-long debate with two extremely intelligent people, I was able to broaden my world perspective far more than I am able to do in the contrived debates of my weekly seminars. My discussion class input — regardless of intellectual sophistication — can be neatly tied in a bow to fulfill the participation quota that will assure me a passable grade. That grade is what matters to society.
Admittedly, I don’t know how we can alter the University system to prioritize the learning process. But I think we’re much more likely to find a solution in the Amphitheater environment than in the current classroom setting.
Tori’s column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at t.travers@cavalierdaily.com
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