Too Cool for School

I don't love studying.

I hate studying.

I like learning.

Learning is beautiful.

-Natalie Portman

I contemplated this today while I was last minute skimming over my educational psych stuff before our first test this morning. I love this quote as it encompasses my feelings about college almost perfectly. 

When I look through the course list for Missouri State, I want to take everything. I want to learn all of the history of everywhere, be at least able to hold a conversation in a whole host of languages, I want to learn about cultures and what the rest of this big old round world is like, I want to take photography and video classes, I want to write and read and learn everything this hub of knowledge has to offer. But that's not how we see college, is it? We see as the means to an end. A ticket to a job that we might not even really want. A piece of paper entitling us to a bigger paycheck. We are supposed to get in and get out and be big kids as fast as we can.

I'm asked, at the very least, once a week how much longer I'll be in school...and I hate that question. I don't know. It really depends how many more times I'm distracted by the draw of learning something that's not part of my degree like when I took French or my Comparative Mythology class. Were they necessary? Nope. Did I study for those classes? Nope. Did I learn new things and love them. YES!

The other thing that absolutely kills school for me are the professors that take what might be awesome learning and turn it into drudgery. Like my edu psych professor who told us to be studying 9 hours a week outside of class...yeah, right. I'm going to take your class, take the tests, and never bother to think about it again. If a professor isn't excited enough to find resources other than the book, why should I be?

Sure, I could read books about anything and everything on my own, but how much more will I learn and how many more questions can be answered if I have a professor who is, theoretically, an expert on a given subject teaching me? 

Let's not forget the fact that my major classes are a colossal waste of time. Yes, Spanish literature is awesome. But let me discover that on my own. Let me go out in the world and start doing something that matters with what I know. Let me perfect my language skills in a place where I have to use them, mess them up, and test them out on my own. Don't make me sit through a class on business Spanish which will bore me to death.

 Blah, where was this originally headed? I dunno. Maybe it was just me ranting. Ask me how school is and I'll tell you it's school. I'm tired of it. I wanna be learning all the things, even those not in my major, or be out and about really experiencing this world and learning from the real world.