Socialization, not education!
What? College as a social club?
I cannot get this thought out of my head, especially now that I've been studying the history of the university and tracing the evolution of undergradate culture.
Being a graduate student makes me an alien to that culture. I don't think its simply because I'm at a different university either. I've stopped paying attention to posted fliers around campus because I've begun to realize that they're all targeted at undergraduates. Everything on campus is targeted at undergraduates. College, in fact, is like one big service designed to keep them busy for four years and maybe somehow prepare them for a job.
Scholarship is left to the graduate school. Undergraduate education is a big wank. Some people take it seriously, but most don't. I met a lot of people as an undergrad who took their studies seriously, who actually spent time thinking about what they read, but they were only in the humanities and perhaps a few in the sciences. Most just studied to pass an exam and then stopped caring.
I can't help but look down on some of the students in disgust as I pass them during my travels across campus. I remember what it was like to sit around in the quad, munch on cheap Asian food and read leasurely with the whole afternoon ahead of me...but now I read because if I don't, I'm fucked. I read constantly because I have no choice. And when I'm done reading for class, I feel the need to read around in my field of interest to help prepare myself for my dissertation qualification exams down the road. Been away from television for too long to go back to it. Can't stand it anymore. Spent too much time thinking over its negatives to simply turn it on and get lost in it again.
I envy their carefree attitudes. I miss those days. I miss getting drunk as hell in the middle of the week and not caring because my classes were a breeze. I miss getting ripped and not caring because I could always cram and get around memory difficulties later.
Study is becoming my obsession. And yet I've been awake for 4 hours today and have been unable to make myself open a book. Maybe that's my mind telling me to just fucking relax for a while. Sounds good to me.
I cannot get this thought out of my head, especially now that I've been studying the history of the university and tracing the evolution of undergradate culture.
Being a graduate student makes me an alien to that culture. I don't think its simply because I'm at a different university either. I've stopped paying attention to posted fliers around campus because I've begun to realize that they're all targeted at undergraduates. Everything on campus is targeted at undergraduates. College, in fact, is like one big service designed to keep them busy for four years and maybe somehow prepare them for a job.
Scholarship is left to the graduate school. Undergraduate education is a big wank. Some people take it seriously, but most don't. I met a lot of people as an undergrad who took their studies seriously, who actually spent time thinking about what they read, but they were only in the humanities and perhaps a few in the sciences. Most just studied to pass an exam and then stopped caring.
I can't help but look down on some of the students in disgust as I pass them during my travels across campus. I remember what it was like to sit around in the quad, munch on cheap Asian food and read leasurely with the whole afternoon ahead of me...but now I read because if I don't, I'm fucked. I read constantly because I have no choice. And when I'm done reading for class, I feel the need to read around in my field of interest to help prepare myself for my dissertation qualification exams down the road. Been away from television for too long to go back to it. Can't stand it anymore. Spent too much time thinking over its negatives to simply turn it on and get lost in it again.
I envy their carefree attitudes. I miss those days. I miss getting drunk as hell in the middle of the week and not caring because my classes were a breeze. I miss getting ripped and not caring because I could always cram and get around memory difficulties later.
Study is becoming my obsession. And yet I've been awake for 4 hours today and have been unable to make myself open a book. Maybe that's my mind telling me to just fucking relax for a while. Sounds good to me.