Subtle Reminder
I recently posed the following question to a very close friend of mine: "Do students at any other school work as much as we do?" The answer was a clear and resounding "No."
Upon further consideration, he mentioned that students at MIT and Caltech probably work as much as we do, and we should probably give due credit to students at similar liberal arts schools who probably have comparable work loads. But on the whole, Reedies spend more of their lives studying than any other students in the country. Or at least that's the claim that I'm going to make...
I mention this as a preface only because it is easy to get caught up in the work that you have to do at Reed. On Monday I went down to the library at 11 am and continued the work that I had spent three hours on the night before--looking up answers to the 52 study questions that my Metaphysics professor had given us for the upcoming midterm. By 7:30pm, I had answers to 40 of them after working all day with a 1 hour lunch break and a 2 hour study session with other students sandwiched in between.
At 4:30 I went over to the computer lab to print out my reading for the next day's Reasons course (another philosophy class). I found that I had two 40-page articles to read on top of the studying I was set to do, not to mention reading for Virtue Ethics, International Trade and, of course, Metaphysics. And I still had two hours of 24 to watch from 8-10 pm. Clearly, I have poor time management skills. After all, the whole weekend was available for me to get to work on this. But that's just not how I operate, is it?
There is a point here. Amidst all the bitching and moaning that Reed students do (and I'm near the top of that list), it's far too easy to fall into the routine of the reading, the problem sets, and the papers. Today, my senses gave me a subtle reminder why I am here.
I think it was a conversation that I had with a close friend who told me to brighten my disposition and smile more (which I took to heart all day today) that triggered this realization. I had class at 9am this morning but I was ecstatic to be with a group of students who really and truly cared about learning. Reedies, especially philosophy students, never cease to amaze me. We studied together, discussed metaphysics, argued points--it was nearly impossible to go through the study questions concisely because we kept getting side-tracked by philosophical discussions.
And then my class tonight. A grueling session from 7:10 to 10:00 on the nature of reasons, justification for action, true belief, epistemic propositions. Instead of suffocating from the density of the subject, I found myself awakened by the aroma of coffee and a memory from my childhood.
As a kid, my parents held discussion groups at our house every Wednesday night in which students would read papers and then argue and consider their main points. This is exactly the atmosphere I felt tonight. Nobody was there because she had to be. Everyone was there because he wanted to be. This is Reed. Everyone is here to learn and the work is just a biproduct of that learning. Sometimes you have to take a step back to really understand why you reed 200 pages of philosophy a week.
I'm learning how to learn, how to think, how to argue, and how to evaluate. It is wonderful.
Upon further consideration, he mentioned that students at MIT and Caltech probably work as much as we do, and we should probably give due credit to students at similar liberal arts schools who probably have comparable work loads. But on the whole, Reedies spend more of their lives studying than any other students in the country. Or at least that's the claim that I'm going to make...
I mention this as a preface only because it is easy to get caught up in the work that you have to do at Reed. On Monday I went down to the library at 11 am and continued the work that I had spent three hours on the night before--looking up answers to the 52 study questions that my Metaphysics professor had given us for the upcoming midterm. By 7:30pm, I had answers to 40 of them after working all day with a 1 hour lunch break and a 2 hour study session with other students sandwiched in between.
At 4:30 I went over to the computer lab to print out my reading for the next day's Reasons course (another philosophy class). I found that I had two 40-page articles to read on top of the studying I was set to do, not to mention reading for Virtue Ethics, International Trade and, of course, Metaphysics. And I still had two hours of 24 to watch from 8-10 pm. Clearly, I have poor time management skills. After all, the whole weekend was available for me to get to work on this. But that's just not how I operate, is it?
There is a point here. Amidst all the bitching and moaning that Reed students do (and I'm near the top of that list), it's far too easy to fall into the routine of the reading, the problem sets, and the papers. Today, my senses gave me a subtle reminder why I am here.
I think it was a conversation that I had with a close friend who told me to brighten my disposition and smile more (which I took to heart all day today) that triggered this realization. I had class at 9am this morning but I was ecstatic to be with a group of students who really and truly cared about learning. Reedies, especially philosophy students, never cease to amaze me. We studied together, discussed metaphysics, argued points--it was nearly impossible to go through the study questions concisely because we kept getting side-tracked by philosophical discussions.
And then my class tonight. A grueling session from 7:10 to 10:00 on the nature of reasons, justification for action, true belief, epistemic propositions. Instead of suffocating from the density of the subject, I found myself awakened by the aroma of coffee and a memory from my childhood.
As a kid, my parents held discussion groups at our house every Wednesday night in which students would read papers and then argue and consider their main points. This is exactly the atmosphere I felt tonight. Nobody was there because she had to be. Everyone was there because he wanted to be. This is Reed. Everyone is here to learn and the work is just a biproduct of that learning. Sometimes you have to take a step back to really understand why you reed 200 pages of philosophy a week.
I'm learning how to learn, how to think, how to argue, and how to evaluate. It is wonderful.
posted by Fish at 10:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home