Sorry for the light posting - I've been flitting about, spending way too much time in airports. (My carbon footprint is a constant source of guilt.) I've recently spent a lot of time hanging around various universities, which always reminds me of just how good undergraduates have it. They manage to live a purely intellectual life, with nothing to do but explore the world of ideas and wander around libraries so vast they'd make Borges blush. (Meanwhile, their professors are begging for grants and grading piles of papers.) The students also have schedules fit for philosopher-kings, with every Friday off and classes that rarely begin before 10 in the morning.
But how they complain! I'd mock these spoiled kids, but I was the exact same way. I also whined about my Friday seminar, or the professor who graded on a curve, or that ten page paper I had yet to write. It's the destiny of every 20 year old undergrad to be ungrateful, just as it's the destiny of every graduate to be nostalgic.
There is, however, one important difference (at least it seems important to me) between my academic experience as an undergrad and the experience of most students today. When I suffered through big lecture classes, and the schedule of every science major is filled with such tiresome affairs, I had to attend every class simply to take notes. I had to dope myself with caffeine and then try to pay attention to the heavily accented grad student talking about organic chemistry. I knew that, when I had to study for midterms, I'd need my most illegible notes for guidance.
But students today don't have to take notes, at least not in the same way. I was recently informed that many professors now post all of their lecture notes online! (I realize this is not a new trend, but I'm way behind the curve. I still think that listening to Arcade Fire makes me cool.) This is craziness. If all the notes are online, then why does anyone ever go to class? It's not like professors are such scintillating performers. And doesn't this defeat the real purpose of an undergraduate education? It's easy to be misled into thinking that the real purpose of taking organic chemistry, or "The 19th century English Novel" is to learn about benzene rings or the writing habits of Charles Dickens. But that's an illusion. What nobody bothers to tell you is that you will forget everything, that all those chemical equations will be purged from your hippocampus shortly after the semester is over.
Rather, the real purpose of all those big lecture classes is to teach you how to learn. You are being given an education in education, forced to develop the kind of thinking habits that will allow you to synthesize, memorize and analyze information later on, in real life. The content of the lecture notes is virtually irrelevant. What's important is the fact that you know how to take notes in the first place.
So don't complain, kids. You have it even better than me, and I had it pretty damn good.
Education & Careers
Comments (12)
I still take notes the old fashioned way (on printed handouts of powerpoint lectures, ha!), but my prof posts mp3s of each lecture, too. Still, I don't think it's the same as actually going to class. But it would do in a pinch, if you missed class, etc.
Posted by: April | April 4, 2008 5:19 PM