There is difference as well as an intersection between doing well in a class and all related academic pursuits with “enlarging one’s understanding of the world” (thanks Milton Glaser). Classes don’t always give you that sense of enlargement, the sense that you have not yet reached the end of your understanding of yourself or the world. They can provide you with that sense if you let them and if you dig deeper yourself, but I often find that classes are too trivialized and reduced to grades and performance. Think about it—our full-time job is to be students. We literally have no other job but to learn, and this is often minimized and downplayed to how well you did on a test or the final grade for the class. The only thing that a test grade tells you is how well you meet the professor’s expectations, or the department’s expectations, or someone else’s expectations for that particular evaluation in that particular moment in your life, not what you actually know, understand, and wonder about in your free time. Perhaps I am biased too much towards thinking about things because that’s my major; I think and argue for a living. But I think there are kernels of truth to be gleaned, there is some sort of meaning to be created in trying to find that sense of enlargement in a class.
Despite how it may appear, a class is not really about impressing your professor, though this does not give you an excuse not to make an effort. A class is about impressing yourself. Study, read, and make an effort to do well because it fulfills you, not because there is an A at the finish line. (Arguably, this depends on your priorities. I understand you can’t always do things because they fulfill you, but at least try to make something out of the things that don’t.) Sometimes, this means that you won’t do as well as you would have wanted to, so you need to learn to fail gracefully. You gotta get creative and redefine what success means to you. I promise a class will be much better if you find a way to connect with it.
That said, classes won’t teach you everything you need to know to face the “real world” (whatever that means). There is much to learn outside of school, and this is not a slight to Colby. Classes in our college bring us to a starting point so we can make good work. Being a student is easy, smart people are a dime a dozen at an institution like ours. Beyond just smart, Colby can help us start to be excellent at whatever we do, but it’s up to us to take it from there. As Adrienne Rich said, “education is something you claim, not something you get“–education requires a strong personal effort and active initiative. You can learn a great deal from a course like this, but it is up to you to internalize it and incorporate it into your interactions with the world. Rich calls it a sense of responsibility to ourselves:
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work. It means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind. […] Responsibility to yourself means that you don’t fall for shallow and easy solutions– predigested books and ideas, weekend encounters guaranteed to change your life, taking “gut” courses instead of ones you know will challenge you, bluffing at school and life instead of doing solid work, marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short, simply to avoid conflict and confrontation. […] It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be “different”; not to be continuously available to others when we need time for ourselves and our work; to be able to demand of others–parents, friends, roommates, teachers, lovers, husbands, children–that they respect our sense of purpose and our integrity as persons.
– Adrienne Rich, “Claiming an Education“
Don’t just be a biology student, or whatever-your-major-may-be student. Be an everything and anything student, a lots of things student. Grow beyond this class. Grow beyond what you thought you were capable of. And at some point during the day, ask yourself “what matters?”
– Amanda Sagasti