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kareinaA young friend of mine asked me in an e-mail recently if I'd been to any beaches or zoos recently. When I replied saying that I was too busy with uni work these days to take time off for those sorts of adventures, he replies saying that it sounded "kinda sad" to be so busy with my uni work. My reply to him, explaining that, actually, it is really rather fun, turned out to be somewhat longer than I think he was expecting. I explained:
I can understand why you'd say that when I tell you that I'm too busy with my uni work to take time to go to the zoo or the beach. I've often felt that way when people tell me that they have to work (and was grateful that as a student I didn't have to work and miss out on the fun things in life), and I can remember thinking things like that about "too much" school work too. I recall being in elementary school and reading books wherein the poor, unfortunate, characters had to do homework, and being grateful that I didn't have to do any.
When I reached highschool and I had assignments that were due days later than assigned I learned to get them (mostly) done during class, so that I wouldn't have to do them at home, or during my "free time" (which was generally spent reading or watching TV, until I found the SCA late in high school, and gave up the TV habit in favour of the SCA habit). I was one of those lucky students who could remember most of what the teacher said the first time I heard it, and so for me "studying" for a test rarely involved doing more than looking over my notes once or perhaps twice, and so I learned no "study skills" as they call them. This didn't come back to bite me for years, in the short term I floated through school easily. I will never forget the time I saw a boyfriend of mine taking a highlighter to one of his textbooks (we were at Uni, so the book was his personal property). I was appalled that he'd deface a book like that, and asked him what he was doing. He said that he was highlighting it so that when he went back to study it later he'd be able to find the important parts quickly. I looked at him, stunned, and asked "don't you remember what you read the first time you read it?". I was also confused, because, from my point of view, it was *all* important stuff, what would be the point of highlighting everything?
But eventually I reached higher level classes, which actually challenged me. Courses wherein I actually had to do my homework during my "free time", because I couldn't get them done during class. Concepts that were challenging enough that I couldn't just parrot them back to the teacher after one hearing, but I actually had to think about them, read the descriptions more than once, do the assignments related to them. Once I got past thinking of it all as "busy work" to keep us out of trouble, and started paying attention to what I was learning as a result of all of it, I begun to get sucked in. Somehow I learned that "homework" *isn't* an evil thing designed to keep you from doing what you want to do. If you are learning something interesting, it can *become* what you want to be doing.
I suspect that it is a rare person who gets to feel that phenomena while they are in elementary or high school. Not everyone who enrols in a university ever gets to feel it. But those of us who do, who catch the "learning bug", who find out that we can teach ourselves more from a stack of books or journal articles than can ever be learned sitting in a lecture, we lucky few go on for higher degrees after the basic "Bachelor's Degree" that comes from a "normal" university education. Once you enroll in a Master's or PhD program, suddenly you are truly in charge of your own education. Sure, you may have classes to take, and you will have an advisor who is responsible to help you with the project, but there is no limit upon what you can learn, and you are free to choose your own topic of study. Then you get the fun of spending several years first learning everything that is already known on your subject, and then learning something totally new, that no one every knew before (though your advisor may have suspected, until you do the research, perform the experiments or whatever, they won't be certain).
I am at that fun stage, I've had three years of researching a project, and now I'm trying to type up everything I've done in relation to it, organizing all of my thoughts, and compiling it into what will be a large book, with lots and lots of pictures to illustrate things. Sure, it is taking up all of my "free time", but, most days, it is *fun*. I am pushing myself harder than I've ever done before--focusing on one thing to the exclusion of many other things I would also enjoy, because, for me, the joy of the project itself is worth it, and because I *want* the degree. I look forward to that day, in the no-longer-so-distant future, where I get to click "Dr." rather than having to choose between "Mrs", "Ms", or "Miss"!
And you know, while I still don't want a "real job", the like of which I've been avoiding in my life-time spent as a student, I do kind of like the idea of getting paid to keep researching things, or, perhaps to teach students and keep researching things. Fortunately, there are universities out there who need people to do just that, and if I'm lucky, when I'm done here I'll find a good one to go to next, only this time get a staff id-card, instead of a student one.
In other news: Today's progress report: only 397 words written (457 if you count the references cited), but the figure they go to took most of the six hours and 40 minutes of actual uni work, and will be one of the more important parts of the project.
I can understand why you'd say that when I tell you that I'm too busy with my uni work to take time to go to the zoo or the beach. I've often felt that way when people tell me that they have to work (and was grateful that as a student I didn't have to work and miss out on the fun things in life), and I can remember thinking things like that about "too much" school work too. I recall being in elementary school and reading books wherein the poor, unfortunate, characters had to do homework, and being grateful that I didn't have to do any.
When I reached highschool and I had assignments that were due days later than assigned I learned to get them (mostly) done during class, so that I wouldn't have to do them at home, or during my "free time" (which was generally spent reading or watching TV, until I found the SCA late in high school, and gave up the TV habit in favour of the SCA habit). I was one of those lucky students who could remember most of what the teacher said the first time I heard it, and so for me "studying" for a test rarely involved doing more than looking over my notes once or perhaps twice, and so I learned no "study skills" as they call them. This didn't come back to bite me for years, in the short term I floated through school easily. I will never forget the time I saw a boyfriend of mine taking a highlighter to one of his textbooks (we were at Uni, so the book was his personal property). I was appalled that he'd deface a book like that, and asked him what he was doing. He said that he was highlighting it so that when he went back to study it later he'd be able to find the important parts quickly. I looked at him, stunned, and asked "don't you remember what you read the first time you read it?". I was also confused, because, from my point of view, it was *all* important stuff, what would be the point of highlighting everything?
But eventually I reached higher level classes, which actually challenged me. Courses wherein I actually had to do my homework during my "free time", because I couldn't get them done during class. Concepts that were challenging enough that I couldn't just parrot them back to the teacher after one hearing, but I actually had to think about them, read the descriptions more than once, do the assignments related to them. Once I got past thinking of it all as "busy work" to keep us out of trouble, and started paying attention to what I was learning as a result of all of it, I begun to get sucked in. Somehow I learned that "homework" *isn't* an evil thing designed to keep you from doing what you want to do. If you are learning something interesting, it can *become* what you want to be doing.
I suspect that it is a rare person who gets to feel that phenomena while they are in elementary or high school. Not everyone who enrols in a university ever gets to feel it. But those of us who do, who catch the "learning bug", who find out that we can teach ourselves more from a stack of books or journal articles than can ever be learned sitting in a lecture, we lucky few go on for higher degrees after the basic "Bachelor's Degree" that comes from a "normal" university education. Once you enroll in a Master's or PhD program, suddenly you are truly in charge of your own education. Sure, you may have classes to take, and you will have an advisor who is responsible to help you with the project, but there is no limit upon what you can learn, and you are free to choose your own topic of study. Then you get the fun of spending several years first learning everything that is already known on your subject, and then learning something totally new, that no one every knew before (though your advisor may have suspected, until you do the research, perform the experiments or whatever, they won't be certain).
I am at that fun stage, I've had three years of researching a project, and now I'm trying to type up everything I've done in relation to it, organizing all of my thoughts, and compiling it into what will be a large book, with lots and lots of pictures to illustrate things. Sure, it is taking up all of my "free time", but, most days, it is *fun*. I am pushing myself harder than I've ever done before--focusing on one thing to the exclusion of many other things I would also enjoy, because, for me, the joy of the project itself is worth it, and because I *want* the degree. I look forward to that day, in the no-longer-so-distant future, where I get to click "Dr." rather than having to choose between "Mrs", "Ms", or "Miss"!
And you know, while I still don't want a "real job", the like of which I've been avoiding in my life-time spent as a student, I do kind of like the idea of getting paid to keep researching things, or, perhaps to teach students and keep researching things. Fortunately, there are universities out there who need people to do just that, and if I'm lucky, when I'm done here I'll find a good one to go to next, only this time get a staff id-card, instead of a student one.
In other news: Today's progress report: only 397 words written (457 if you count the references cited), but the figure they go to took most of the six hours and 40 minutes of actual uni work, and will be one of the more important parts of the project.