I haven't really figured out how to talk about this without sounding conceited or unsympathetic towards others. However, school is too easy for me. I'm not being challenged. So far, college has been a joke. I have written three papers, and all of them have been graded 100%. My lowest grade in my classes is, I believe, 93%, and I rarely do homework. I'm not sure if it's just me, or if my classes are just incredibly easy, but I'm wondering when the work is going to start. Part of me wants to just stop doing my homework and dare my teachers to give me a bad grade - I hardly do anything anyway, so why would less do much harm?
I experienced this during my senior year of high school, also. My English class was too easy. I did a week's worth of homework the night before it was due, and received an A+ in the class. I didn't like my math class, so I stopped doing homework and still pulled off a B. I stopped going to my Spanish class and stopped doing my homework, and, just from doing tests, I got a C+. The B and C+ are bad grades for me, but I am almost happy now that I finally received reactions from my teachers.
To be honest, it felt nice the first time for my college writing teacher to say, "You are an amazing writer; I cannot find any weaknesses!" However, I now feel disappointed. I'm 18, and I've never been in any real, formal writing classes, besides those given in public schools. I cannot be naturally perfect; there must be something to critique.
I also am in three classes where I don't have to write a single paper. This does not feel like college to me. This feels easier than high school, to be honest. In my government class my senior year, I wrote a two-page paper every week, not to mention the large amount of reading I'd do, as well as a weekly multiple choice quiz, a midterm, and a final. In my American Heritage class (which covers both government and economics, as well as the complete history of America - sounds intense, but it's not), I have nothing more than five fifty-question exams throughout the semester - nothing being comprehensive.
In summary, I suppose I expected college to be harder. Part of me wonders what would have happened if I'd gone to a public high school and taken AP classes - would I be at Princeton right now? I also am ready to be challenged, or I know I will begin to slack off.
On a completely different note, I still can't believe I am in college. I used to look at my sister as so grown up and mature when she went away to school. Now, I'm in her shoes and I still feel like that eight year old. I was walking home today, thinking about all the things I need to do this week, such as laundry, homework, work, and classes, and yet I don't feel old enough to take on those things. Yet at the same time, I am anxious to continue growing up, to finish college, and to get a family and a real job.
I know those things will come eventually, but for now, I am amazed I am even in Idaho.
4 comments:
hey elizabeth,
cool to find your new blog through your mom's announcement. i love reading everything you've posted so far.
i gotta side with your lit teacher and say that you are a natural writer. you have an expressiveness to you that seems to just flow. i'm going to enjoy reading your blog.
as for the schoolwork lameness in college, i hear you. i'm in a master's program right now, and some of the classes have been SO EASY. i can hardly believe the money i'm paying to get some of these easy classes. it disappoints me.
on the other hand, i'm in an advanced law class this month that is freaking excruciatingly HARD WORK. major papers and presentations and case law analyses and contract drafts due almost every day. it feels like what a graduate-level class should feel like, in my imaginings of what that might be.
i guess i just say all that to say i feel you. and that maybe sometimes it doesn't even get better in grad school. guess it depends on the instructor and the school, to an extent.
am looking forward to your blog!!!have missed you..comming from the "other" side of school, I always had a hard time ....so feel very blessed that school comes easy to you..maybe you can take extra classes that will challenge you more.how about comming back to ca, go to school at STANS. sounds like you miss a lot...i know how you feel when you get homesick...i was that way when i first got married and moved to ca. and that was a long time ago..no blogs back then!!! anyways, we all miss you also and love you....
It is amazing how that happens. I have now been out of college for 3 years and sometimes I still feel like I am eight years old. It amazes me that I have so many responsibilities (job, house, etc) when I feel like a kid still. I wonder when it will "hit" me and I will start feeling like an adult.
Elizabeth, you do have a natural gift. ("gift" being the operative word here; "thankfulness", the proper response)
Lifting a quote from Katrina's Facebook, "This business of education is God's business. He gave us minds that think. He created the world we think about. He wrote the book of nature. He made the rules of logic. He is the standard of true and false, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. To ignore Him is to be profoundly uneducated".
-John Piper
The highest education is acknowledging the Educator and trusting Him to challenge you. Look for His leading. There is plenty to learn outside the walls of your college buildings! You've only just begun.
Post a Comment