Earlier this week I began a series of posts on the “sins of the student,” starting with the folly of short-sightedness. I want to give a second example of short-sightedness that I see all too frequently: in the selection of classes (or assignments).
One example I heard recently was of a student who was “undecided” for their major, but took the “Federalist Papers” as a freshman. I don’t merely measure bad choices by the immediate cause (i.e., I didn’t learn anything), but also by the opportunity lost (e.g., a chance to take a course on the “Life of Christ” or a course in writing). I also don’t blame the adviser. Students take note: advisers are busy and for many of them, you’re just one on a list. They are not responsible for getting you the best education; you are. My wife had this very problem in college: taking the right classes but at the wrong time (a combination of poor advising and closed classes). I happen to believe that course selection (and timing!) is extremely important. Too many students view it as a “shopping experience” (yes, unfortunately with “cart” and all these days), with not much to be lost. Oh but there is! You should not take Minor Prophets before you take OT Survey, and you should not take Theological Systems before you take Theology I. (I also think it should be forbidden to take NT before OT, but that’s a separate subject.) You should never take a senior level course as a freshman, and rarely as a sophmore. Decisions matter. If you have a lame adviser, find someone who can give you the right counsel and then take your list back to your adviser for approval. Better to repeat three times than to waste your semester. (Hey, I could write a book: “Don’t Waste Your Semester” :-)).
I also have witnessed students who choose a course based on its degree of difficulty (or rather, lack thereof). I’m not one to suggest taking a course solely because it is hard, but it is clearly short-sighted to skip a good course because 1) the assignments are hard; 2) the teacher gives lower grades than are deserved. This is particularly true where #1 is something that is clearly needed in order for the student to grow mentally. At my college, it is often the dreaded “paper” that causes students to flee. Because many other courses don’t require papers (shamefully so), the student need not even be very skillful to avoid them throughout his college years. The result: a college graduate who cannot write. The worst situation for a teacher is to have a graduating student who fails the course (and thus doesn’t graduate) because he cannot write a minimally proficient paper. Many are the schools in which the large majority of courses require at least one research paper. Given that I believe that learning to write is one of the two major goals of a college education, I think that this is the right approach.
The point for the student then is to make choices that are best for him/her in the long run. That would include taking courses where skills that the student is weak in are stressed and effectively graded.
The student who chooses the easier class so that he has a better chance of keeping his academic scholarship ironically forfeits the very education the scholarship is intended to give him.
It is quite possible to spend $100,000 on an education and learn very little. And it happens too often because of short-sighted decisions.
Spoken like someone who has been on both sides of the teacher-student relationship. And its so true. Students need to be proactive and tenacious in choosing courses. I am indebted to men like CW Smith, Greg Behle, and yourself who made me write and instilled in me the passion to do it with excellence. Plus, when you know what you’re doing it is a lot of fun.
Hmm…Todd, I probably wouldn’t have agreed with you in Israel while putting many hours into my Ancient Israel paper but now looking back on it…it was the best experience I’ve ever gone through and the one I most learned from and still remember today. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the sins of a student. Its because of my ibex classes that I’ve dared to step out and take the hard ones! I appreciate knowing your thoughts about all these subjects even today…so continue to blog :)
todd, just to let you know, your passion for “perfection” in writing (i.e. no lame mistakes like spelling, grammar, etc.)is what has inspired me to be a better writer. It has also caused me to criticize my hometown newspaper for the many mistakes they make (misspelling words, not finishing stories, bad grammar, etc.)- I only “evaluate” them, I’ve never official commplained to them. And, your passion is also why, in my graduate teacher courses, you have always been named as my most favorite teacher! Please continue to inspire other students to excellence in all aspects of life!
When my daughter was a TA in a Bioethics class, essentially a class to improve writing ability, she spent much time trying to teach students how to improve their skills. Unfortunately, mostly what she heard in return was “I always got A’s on my high school papers.” I’m sure she’d advise students to learn, to improve their skills, not to become overly focused on the grade. Getting an “A” you don’t deserve is not an accomplishment, nor is it ultimately to your advantage.
Todd,
Again you hit something right on the nose. It made me sad to hear some students respond to the question of why did you take that class? I have heard so many say “because it was an easy class.” While I was in Israel I was incredibly blessed to have taken both your classes there. I learned more from your two classes about how to be a student than in any other time in my career as a student. Even though my HAI paper wasn’t the best, (it was the longest paper I had written up until that point) I did learn more from the experience. Thank you Todd for teaching me how to write a research paper, learn, and challenge myself. I hope people learn from you in ways that are so amazing!
Sean