Today's Forecast: Another update, followed by a huge tirade about education. Lows in the mid-60's.
Yeah, I never ended up posting about the new way to enjoy Teenis. I probably never will because Jay, Alex, Ashley, and Chris all posted about it. Just know that it ended with Chris taking a "Teeni-shower."
Friday night was My Safe Haven, Makeoutmusic, and The Schematics. It was such a great show. I didn't even know that Makeoutmusic was playing. For all the times that Steve calls me on the phone for little-to-no reason at all, he could have told me something important like that. Also, he could have told me that he has become straightedge AND vegan. He stopped smoking, drinking, and eating meat. Such a change from the Angry Punk Rock Steve [APRS as he came to be known] that I used to know. At first when he was trying to reform, I laughed at him. Not because I didn't want to see him better himself, but because he worded it so freaking outrageously. He said something like, "Angry Punk Rock Steve is entering into a cocoon, and will metamorphose into a better person, who shall emerge as only Steven Dean." I think he told Dave the same story and got laughed at as well. ANYWAY, back to the topic, Steve really surprised me when he dedicated a song to me for helping him to reform. Congratulations, Steve.
Sunday I woke up and couldn't breathe. Allergy season had finally caught up to me. I had hoped that if I hid in the shadows and safety of my room, that I'd live a happy and non-congested life. I was wrong. To add insult to it, I have been working on my Japanese make-up assignments for two days straight. It's the most not-fun thing that I have to do before school ends. Yeah...school.....I just want it to be over. I don't want final exams, or homework, or anything. Just pass me, and make it end.
One of my instructors, Shaheed Mohammed, gave a speech in class last week about our college institution system, and it really got me thinking. So much that I have formed my own strong opinion on our system of "higher education." He began by criticizing that college is treated as a continuation of high school. We no longer have a choice whether to enter college or just go into the work force after high school. Now, you NEED to go to college if you want a real job. Because of this common conception, many students are not in college to learn at all. To make sure that they at least seem to be learning, college syllabi look like that of the average high school. Tests, quizzes, homework, absences, it's all dealt with in there. Whether you know the material or not, you are forced to do homework to prove that you know it. Whether you want to learn the material or not, you are forced to remember it temporarily because you will be tested on it. WHY!?!?! That is the question. The way I see it, I choose to take a class because I want to learn something from it. If I don't want to learn the names of every American President in order of election, why should I? If a student doesn't want to learn how to calculate statistics, why should he/she? I cannot see a reason why I should study hard and do well on a subject that I am going to forget by the next semester anyway. Yet I must, just so that the college can say that its core courses are just as thorough as, if not more versed than another college. Is it so my future employer can rest assured that I have been taught how to find the derivative of an algebraic equation without the use of a calculator? I would have to say it is more the first than the second, especially since I am studying film at college, and not mathematics. [SIDE NOTE: With technology providing easy access to the Internet, I feel that a lot of courses are becoming obsolete. If in a job environment we need to know otherwise useless trivia, that information can be easily, and accurately retrieved.] So why do colleges require us to study in all these fields if we do not want to study them? Aren't WE, the students, the ones who will benefit from an education in "an institute of higher learning"? I always though that was the case.
It has now become my viewpoint that C's earn degrees. If I am being forced to learn a subject that I could care less about, why should I struggle to do my best? Why work hard to get that extra credit on my paper? I'll just end up in the same place anyway. As long as I learn how to properly produce/film/post-produce movies, does the rest even matter?
I am not anti-education at all. Quite the opposite. I feel that knowledge is power, to borrow the cliche. That we must educate ourselves in order to better ourselves. It's just that I can see that a person will only learn what he or she wants to learn. Want proof? Ask anyone you know, maybe even your parents who have graduated from college, some of the ridiculous test questions that you are currently studying for in college or high school, and see if they know it. Better yet, see if they even care. I know I probably wouldn't.
I welcome feedback on this topic.
Friday night was My Safe Haven, Makeoutmusic, and The Schematics. It was such a great show. I didn't even know that Makeoutmusic was playing. For all the times that Steve calls me on the phone for little-to-no reason at all, he could have told me something important like that. Also, he could have told me that he has become straightedge AND vegan. He stopped smoking, drinking, and eating meat. Such a change from the Angry Punk Rock Steve [APRS as he came to be known] that I used to know. At first when he was trying to reform, I laughed at him. Not because I didn't want to see him better himself, but because he worded it so freaking outrageously. He said something like, "Angry Punk Rock Steve is entering into a cocoon, and will metamorphose into a better person, who shall emerge as only Steven Dean." I think he told Dave the same story and got laughed at as well. ANYWAY, back to the topic, Steve really surprised me when he dedicated a song to me for helping him to reform. Congratulations, Steve.
Sunday I woke up and couldn't breathe. Allergy season had finally caught up to me. I had hoped that if I hid in the shadows and safety of my room, that I'd live a happy and non-congested life. I was wrong. To add insult to it, I have been working on my Japanese make-up assignments for two days straight. It's the most not-fun thing that I have to do before school ends. Yeah...school.....I just want it to be over. I don't want final exams, or homework, or anything. Just pass me, and make it end.
One of my instructors, Shaheed Mohammed, gave a speech in class last week about our college institution system, and it really got me thinking. So much that I have formed my own strong opinion on our system of "higher education." He began by criticizing that college is treated as a continuation of high school. We no longer have a choice whether to enter college or just go into the work force after high school. Now, you NEED to go to college if you want a real job. Because of this common conception, many students are not in college to learn at all. To make sure that they at least seem to be learning, college syllabi look like that of the average high school. Tests, quizzes, homework, absences, it's all dealt with in there. Whether you know the material or not, you are forced to do homework to prove that you know it. Whether you want to learn the material or not, you are forced to remember it temporarily because you will be tested on it. WHY!?!?! That is the question. The way I see it, I choose to take a class because I want to learn something from it. If I don't want to learn the names of every American President in order of election, why should I? If a student doesn't want to learn how to calculate statistics, why should he/she? I cannot see a reason why I should study hard and do well on a subject that I am going to forget by the next semester anyway. Yet I must, just so that the college can say that its core courses are just as thorough as, if not more versed than another college. Is it so my future employer can rest assured that I have been taught how to find the derivative of an algebraic equation without the use of a calculator? I would have to say it is more the first than the second, especially since I am studying film at college, and not mathematics. [SIDE NOTE: With technology providing easy access to the Internet, I feel that a lot of courses are becoming obsolete. If in a job environment we need to know otherwise useless trivia, that information can be easily, and accurately retrieved.] So why do colleges require us to study in all these fields if we do not want to study them? Aren't WE, the students, the ones who will benefit from an education in "an institute of higher learning"? I always though that was the case.
It has now become my viewpoint that C's earn degrees. If I am being forced to learn a subject that I could care less about, why should I struggle to do my best? Why work hard to get that extra credit on my paper? I'll just end up in the same place anyway. As long as I learn how to properly produce/film/post-produce movies, does the rest even matter?
I am not anti-education at all. Quite the opposite. I feel that knowledge is power, to borrow the cliche. That we must educate ourselves in order to better ourselves. It's just that I can see that a person will only learn what he or she wants to learn. Want proof? Ask anyone you know, maybe even your parents who have graduated from college, some of the ridiculous test questions that you are currently studying for in college or high school, and see if they know it. Better yet, see if they even care. I know I probably wouldn't.
I welcome feedback on this topic.