College Isn’t for Learners
For once in my college career I’m heading into the black sea of the aptly named “Dead Week” and my final exams with a zen outlook. I’d like to say it’s because I took my classes by the horns and have such good grades I don’t have to worry too much about my performance, finally free from the constant frantic calculations of GPA and of lowest scores needed on tests to maintain any last bastion of hopes/delusions of a 4.0 — the truth is far from it. It’s not even that I got wrecked by their difficulty either. None were easier, but they were objectively easier material than courses I’ve aced before, so what’s the issue? It’s because at a core level I think that the metrics pushed by the higher education system are destructive to my passion for learning.
Since I’ve gotten to college I’ve set off to start a student political movement and, more recently, a forex trading group. I’ve fervently poured my time and energy into these undertakings while still pushing myself towards a degree in electrical engineering and often through artificially difficult classes involved in that because, despite having no interest in being an engineer in the future. I have a passion for technology and science. I’m studying engineering out of genuine interest and nothing more. The system in place is almost built solely in opposition to this, however.
You start with two years (at least) of courses built to weed out the ‘non-serious’ students, but are also filled to the brim with useless material and (often) even more useless TAs who couldn’t relate it to you in terms of how it will impact your future work if their graduate degree was depending on it. Differential Equations, a class I’ll be using next semester in circuit theory is the pinnacle of this. After 100 hours of studying and working on assignments in this course I have yet to see one practical payoff of the material that couldn’t be taught solely in how it applies to my classwork in the future.
To balance out courses like these in the name of a ‘well-rounded’ higher education we have elective hours to broaden our horizons outside of our degree. This is all well and good, until you have some of the hardest working students I know taking a class universally regarded as an utter waste of time just to catch their breath and boost their GPA, failing their purpose and wasting time and tuition dollars. It isn’t until half of your college experience slips by that you’re finally confronted with material relevant to your degree.
I understand the evolution to this point, and it’s hard to hate it. Its whole purpose is to pump out engineers for the workforce so companies can distinguish the best and the brightest to pull into their firms. Engineering has been so notorious for this that we’ve even mentally shifted our definition of a good grades down by half a GPA point to accommodate our self-imposed challenging courses. This system gives us metrics, a rank and file order — and it does it exceedingly well. But it fails students like myself who aren’t in it for the job, but out of our humble love of the subject. The metrics are ruining my academic college experience and, even worse, have ruined the chances of some students who would’ve made great engineers in the field but couldn’t bring themselves to actually care enough about a banal weed out class to put in the work to succeed.
This has left me in a system I can’t bear myself to buy into any longer.
Earlier this week I had a moment when the connections finally all clicked into place and I saw what I’d been missing for hours of studying and felt a flood of relief and understanding wash over me. As I giddily explained that moment of clarity to another engineering student the next day I knew it was for those moments that I lived for as a passionate learner, and those exact moments that keep me going in my degree. As soon as I said goodbye, however, the giddiness quickly gave way back to the worries over my exams over that exact topic I’d been so elated about. Despite several dozen hours studying over the semester for this class and a solid understanding of the material, I still had to worry for my grades on the upcoming exam because I knew it would be written to wipe the floor with any student without a savant level understanding of the material. It sucked the energy right of me. I wasn’t being challenged to do better or learn more completely, I knew I was just going to be punished for not dedicating my life to the subject at hand.
The metrics, and our constant competition over our place in their rankings, has chewed up and spit out the joy from my learning. It has deflated the pride I used to take from my work because it devalues my attempts to define myself outside of its standards. Worse still, my distaste for its impact on me is now the only fuel for my desire to still compete at all. In grim acceptance of this I find peace on my way into Dead and Final weeks, knowing that my graded performance is neither an example of my ability to learn, nor indicative of the quality of work which I am capable of, but an expression of how destructive this type of teaching system can be to those more passionate about the material than the grades.
