knowledge or As?
what's better: learning the material or studying to get As? I always believed learning the material was better. yet all too often we are measured by the grades we score and not the knowledge we know. Of course, in my opinion, it is best to have both the knowledge and the grades, but I definately know of classes in undergraduate where I studied because I wanted to learn and subsequently did poorly on the exam. I knew the material, just not the points the professor emphasized or not from the professor's point of view. I remember this one class where I studied my ass off and ended up getting Ds on the first 2 exams. When I asked why, my professor would give me an explanation as to what they were looking for. Which is what I had answered, but not quite. I think of this now because recently I had a pharmacology exam. Since I was sick all weekend, I did not study for the test. On monday, I drugged myself up enough to look over this "summary" chart that one of my classmates had put together. Basically, it was the key "different points" about the various CNS drugs. I probably spent 3 hours max studying for that test. I went in to the test, expecting to fail, maybe score a C at best because I didn't know ANYTHING. Surprise surprise, rote last minute memorization scored me a B. I studied to what the teacher was going to test on. But I don't remember anything! While at work today, I kept seeing drugs that I had been tested on this week and I couldn't even remember what they were for! that made me feel like a bad pharmacist to be. memorization is bad...I want to learn. but I still want to do well in school. I'm conflicted.