Drowning in a Sea of Words

I want to start by letting everyone know that this will be my last post for at least four days due to the fact that this is my finals week. I was debating even entering this post today, but the idea for it hit me and I found it impossible to go without writing it. My lack of daily posting the past week has also been due to the amount of studying and homework I have had to do lately. Unfortunately my blog must take a back seat to my studies. On that note I am making this post about those classes that every student has been in where there are unnecessary amounts of work. I am not trying to be a typical lazy student who is just whining about having to do work, because I actual enjoy writing essays and reading. The thing that bothers me is when it is all assigned at one time with a small window to complete it. I enjoy writing a good paper and reading an interesting chapter, but I don't like having to read a ton of material, write a paper or two, and do this all while studying for a final exam at the end of the week. This is when it becomes ridiculous. I am an online student because my job makes attending college classes nearly impossible unless I do them all at night. This should show professors of online classes that my time is already limited, thus the reason for taking online classes, so they should plan assignments that don't require a complete dedication to school work for a whole week. I understand that finals week is a stressful week no matter what but this is usually due to the immense amount of studying that students undertake. This would not bother me at all if it was the case, but instead I have yet to even touch studying for my exams because I am too busy reading material that I will later have to write a three page paper on which will be followed up by another final paper that were all assigned the week of finals. I know that online classes are known for moving at a faster pace which requires more work in a smaller amount of time, but this has gotten a tad out of hand. I can write an essay just fine and read a large portion of a text book, but expecting me to do that on the same week as finals is the part I struggle with. I don't believe this is a reflection of a student's ability. Drowning a student in work does not show his skill or knowledge of the material, but instead merely reflects how much time he has to dedicate to studying or how well he can function without sleep. If you want to test my knowledge of the material that is in the class then give me a final exam and be done. I will do my part as the student to prepare for it. There is no need to drown me in assignments in an attempt to prepare me for a final. If the assignments that were previously assigned did not teach me the material then I probably won't learn it now either. So many teachers seem to think that they can cram in knowledge in a weeks time, but honestly if you haven't learned it by the last week then you probably won't learn it at all. I know a lot of college students are reading this and screaming how much it isn't true, but I am not referring to the late night cramming where you are memorizing the material and not learning it. Almost anyone can cram the week before an exam and remember things just along enough for the exam, but this only results in a loss of that information from your brain a month or two later. This may work in high school because a lot of the classes are general education or useless electives that are there mainly for babysitting purposes to keep you out of trouble, but in college the classes serve a much greater purpose. You don't take college classes just to get the degree because the degree only represents the skills you should have due to obtaining the degree. College classes are meant to prepare you for your career, so if you "BS" your way through college then you will get into a job after college due to a degree you don't deserve which will eventually lead to your failure at that job due to knowledge you don't really have. That is why actually learning is so much more crucial in college than just getting the grade. I would much rather actually learn something in a class and get a decent grade than learn nothing but cram enough to ace the class. This is a large reason as to why a lot of college students don't really care about their GPA and I don't thing colleges should care either. Now a student shouldn't have a bad GPA because that just shows that they aren't putting effort into their classes at all, but there is nothing wrong with only have a decent GPA as long as you are actually learning what you need to know for your field. I understand that a GPA is a good reflection of the students success in school and that if they are learning the material then they would also have a solid GPA, but this is not always the case. I have been in classes where I have learned a lot of very helpful things, but, due to an overload or work or the biggest nightmare of every college student where you study everything but what the professor actual put on the test, I did not get an amazing grade in the class. (I realize that my sentences are a tad too long but I am not entirely concerned with grammar right now) I say all of this because it shows how college has come too much down to learning how to "pass school" and less about actually learning. Many students are great at school, but fail in the real world because they didn't actually learn anything. They just got so good at school throughout the years that it was their career. They can play the game perfectly. I believe that this is due to an educational system that focuses so much on statistics that they forget the entire reason they are there. I realize that many are fussing about how most colleges are still a business at the end of the day, but they still serve a greater purpose in society. This "no child left behind" rule has created a system that pushes kids a long and practically hands them grades just to make the school look good. I have sat next to students who can barely complete a multiplication table, but are sitting in my calculus class with me. I am not trying to say I am smarter than everyone else, because my freshman year of college taught me I am far from that. College does a much better job at not catering to the statistics, but by that point it is too late to stop the habits already put into students and colleges still go towards statistics more than they should. Many students have had those professors that will push for grades to fid the dreaded Bell Curve just so that it looks all pretty on paper. This is like a scientist who adjusts the results of an experiment to fit his hypothesis. Schools are adjusting their student's grades to fit their statistical goals. Passing should not be the end goal of a school, but it should instead be that every student actual learns the knowledge before moving onto the next level. People get so excited about graduating, but so many of them are getting a false graduation that is mostly for show. So many students did not learn even close to the required amount of material and many of them got that piece of paper because the school wanted to make their percentage of graduates bigger. I am a great example of that when it comes to foreign languages. I cannot remember a single bit of Spanish even though I took the required amount in college. This proves that I did not take it so that I would learn a foreign language, but instead I was forced to take it so that the school could check a box off their list. Granted I don't think foreign languages should be required in the first place, but that is a whole other topic entirely. I have learned a great deal in the classes that I have taken this semester, but feel that I may be in fear of not getting the "A" I greatly desire in the class due to an overload of work in the final week that will result in a less than stupendous grade on the final exam or a crappy essay done in haste. I hate rushing my school work because I want my work to be something I am proud of and something that I will enjoy putting my name on. This is the reason why I won't write a post unless I know I have the required amount of time to make it a solid, good quality post, though some may think it is not. Many blogs that I have read will crap out little small posts just to make sure they produce something every day, but I would rather go a week without a single new post if it meant I only had great quality posts on my blog. I think that school work should be the same way. I would rather the teacher assign far less assignments, but grade the ones they do assign much harder. This would result in a greater amount of effort put into assignments and would create students that were required to actually learn the material to create work with high quality. Anyone can crap out a bunch of small, meaningless assignments that only seem like time-fillers, but it takes true effort and time to make a good, lengthy, and high quality piece of work. This is a large reason as to why I prefer large essays over small worksheets. Anyone can read through a text and fill out a worksheet based on the text while they do it. That is mostly just parroting back information without even memorizing it, but it takes effort to analyze that text and make it into an essay based on your own thoughts. I believe that this is a large reason as to why our educational system is struggling and is producing a student body unable to handle the real world. A real job doesn't want a space-filler that can complete busy work all day. Those are the kinds of jobs located at the bottom of the corporate ladder, but the true success lies in the ability to analyze and move beyond the simple ability to "do school." Lets stop looking at the statistics and start looking at the student.