I earned my degree in 2011, so
it hasn’t been long. I also have a good memory for everything. Between
these things, I remember college very well including what it was that
got me through despite hating some parts of it:
Have fun.
More specifically, allow college
to be a fulfilling experience. This is
either the most obvious thing you’ve ever been told or the most absurd. It’s hoped that everyone in college wants to
be there, but this is less common than you think and college is difficult
regardless of your intelligence. For
even the devoted, college can be frustrating and boring. Sometimes, it is better to be challenged if
it allows you enjoyment and so you should enroll in the courses that interest
you, regardless of how easy or useful.
Unfortunately, you will be required to complete courses that are neither
interesting nor useful and, in those cases, you must add your own fun.
For your general education electives,
do not take classes just because they are easy.
Easy will not interest you and you will find it infinitely more difficult
to perform well if you are bored. While “Rocks
for Jocks” is not the least challenging, reading 50 pages of it per week and
writing a paper about it will crush your spirit and you won’t care what grade
you receive. While a junior in my
program, I enrolled in two online courses to fulfill my life sciences
credits. My interest was none and I
expected both to be an easy ‘A.’ Unfortunately, my boredom reached a level
where I quit reading the texts and was forced to compromise my integrity and
just google the online test answers. In
the same semester, however, I enrolled in an acting class. I am a reserved, introverted person and
feared the course and expected it to be horribly difficult. While it was easily the most challenging
course for me, it resulted in some of my most favorite experiences. I received C’s in the online courses and an
A- in acting.
In college, some of the required
courses are unavoidably boring. For
these, you must find something to do while in them to hold your interest. For papers, choose a topic that both fulfills
the assignment and interests you beyond earning a grade. For art projects, make something you want
even if you don’t like the assignment parameters. For me, my least favorite class was freshman
composition. While I love to read and
write, the school’s curriculum required significant amounts of peer review and
draft revisions which disagreed terribly with my process. I dropped the class within the first month
twice before finally sucking it up and resolving to finish. Luckily, I realized that the writing prompts
were easy enough to bend to suit my needs and I researched information I cared
to know and bent it to suit the needs of the paper. This allowed me to push past the frustration and
boredom of reading terribly written student papers from my peers and making a
handful of unnecessary revisions to each paper before being allowed to submit
for grading. If you make the effort to
write a good paper, the instructor will forgive a loose interpretation of the
prompt and so you should write about what you want to know.
College unavoidably will involve
lots of hard work and boredom, but for some reason you are here. Either dedicate yourself to doing well or
quit. Even if you hate it, trying hard
in your classes rather than being dumb and lazy about them will make your time
here go much faster. Better, you may be
surprised how easy it is to enjoy the experience and remember there are many
worse places to be.
If only... ;)
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