Opinion | 4/9/08

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One of my psychology teachers and I were discussing the option of grad school recently, and of course, he strongly recommended that I consider it. I have been on the fence about this for a long time. By "on the fence, " I mean I tell people I'm thinking about it when really I can't wait to be done with school forever so that I can become a Navy SEAL or a porn star or something.

Then he told me that he was, at best, a mediocre student during undergrad.

He was disenchanted with his education, and maintained a C average over the course of his time in school. Hey, I thought, that sounds like me.

He told me that when he got to grad school, everything changed. No longer were his professors glossing over topics and teaching the basics of the scientific method.

He was finally sinking his teeth into the things that he was passionate about and, for the first time, he was getting something out of his education. Look at him now. A mediocre student by all accounts, and now an accomplished researcher and a university professor.

When he told me that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can't tell you how much I hate undergrad studies.

Even as a psych major, a topic that I find endlessly fascinating, the bureaucracy and mechanical nature of the University system has completely drained me of any passion for learning this stuff. Instead of learning about abnormal psychology and mental illness, all I did was fill a prereq requirement for another class. Rather than focusing on personality development and human behavior, I'm worried about obtaining a 300 level credit in the history department.

And for what? The entire college experience boils down to a checklist of credits and a numerical value to illustrate "how well you learned." It's bullshit. It almost had me believing that psychology wasn't the right place for me, and for that, I'm angry.

To hear my teacher tell me that I'm not the only one who feels this way, though, was monumentally important to me.

To know that someone like me, someone who is going through the motions just to make it to the end, could somehow maintain the drive to learn and one day go on to accomplish great things in his field, made me feel so much better about my future.

Continued...

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