Students lack excitement for education
Legend’s View
There is an epidemic sweeping across college campuses, and it’s not the swine flu. Students have become increasingly apathetic about their educations. When did college stop being a place to broaden our horizons and expand our minds?Of course college is where we are supposed to prepare for adulthood, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a mindless one-foot-in-front-of-the-other process to get that piece of paper and move onto a good job.
It seems like nowadays, students spend hours in class staring at a clock waiting for it all to be over. What ever happened to the thirst for knowledge?
To be sure, there are those general education requirements that may seem tedious and unnecessary, where we question why we have to sit through pointless, power-point driven lectures hour after hour and wonder why we should care. But they are there for reason, to get us to take a step outside of our comfort zone and expose us to new ideas.
Perhaps taking a second to stop texting, put down our iPhones, and actually listen to subject matter being presented would make it seem like less of a waste of time.
If learning doesn’t interest us, why are we here in the first place? There are plenty of people that are denied the opportunity to go to college, so why do we continuously waste what we are so fortunate to have?
Certainly, the fault lies not only with us, the education system itself seems to have taken on the same apathetic stance. Semester after semester, we are subjected to recycled power-points that seem to discourage class discussion and professors whose own interest in the subject appears to be flagging. But what better way to reignite their enthusiasm than with our own.
With the advent of sites like rate my professor, some students search out less demanding professors and classes, all in the pursuit of an easy A. What a waste of our hard earned tuition money. As long as we are shelling out the dough, let’s get as much as we can out of each dollar.
Aren’t we more likely to be inspired by a teacher that challenges us to rethink our ideologies and assumptions about the world and reexamine our place in it?
College is supposed to be the best years of our lives. Where else are we encouraged to speak our minds and explore new avenues of thought? Surely not while sitting in our future cubicles amidst the rat race of life.
