This is a rant directed, I guess, at my own personal motivation. It sucks.
I go to college, and have classes with people who have gotten straight A’s their whole life. I am lucky if I get a single A in any given semester. Now many of these people deserve their superior performance; they work their tail off and get the benefits.
But then there are some who must be mnemonic, or have photographic memories. They don’t study at all; some of them only show up during the exams and still manage to easily get an A in the class. As for me, it takes a ton of time, effort, and motivation (all of which are generally lacking in me) to match them.
The fact is that I just don’t have the motivation to study dilligently. Sure, I do study, but I can’t stand to spend hours and hours doing it. Studying is like kryptonite to me. And even when I suffer through it, study, see tutors, do research, the end result is rarely any improvement at all. So I’m busting my ass for mediocricy.
The lack of motivation, combined with frustration about grades has created a general apathy for me. I don’t want to worry about grades anymore because all that does is stress me out. The harder I work at it the more of a basketcase I become. Really the only thing I’m concerned about is passing classes and graduating, anything else hasn’t demonstrated to be worth my time.
And yet, if I could, I’d be that person that spends hours and hours studying and gets the A. The problem is that I cannot usually commit myself to that much work, and even when I do, I still don’t get good grades.
I was one of the ones who didn’t study much and got A’s and B’s. I paid attention in class and participated in conversations about the various subjects being discussed. I believe there is a middle ground with the studying. And I believe you can burn yourself out on it if you do it too much. Maybe you need a study group. People who can help with the motivation and the parts you find difficult.
I’m one of those bastards, I guess. I got straight A’s in college without ever taking notes or studying for a test. I had a pretty good memory for what was said in class, but a lot of it was just an innate gift for bullshit on essay questions.
I do pay attention in class and participate in conversation. In fact, classes in which those two things are heavily graded on are the classes I tend to get A’s in.
Thing is, I don’t have a very good memory. And 95% of what I’m doing/learning isn’t that interesting. What information I DO find interesting I tend to retain. I have about a year left of school to go (after this semester) and I just want to get it over with.
There are things that I suck at which I enjoy doing regardless, and there are things I suck at which I don’t enjoy doing. School is something I suck at which I don’t enjoy doing, but I’ve only got a year to go so I can put up with it until I’m done.
Something else that makes it frustrating is that I live in the shadow of successfull people; My mom only got one C her whole life and school was very easy for her. She can’t level with my challenges; her answer to my troubles in school is “Just do the work.”
Sorry, mom, but sometimes there’s more to school (and life) than just going through the motions. And going through the motions does not = success.
I’m probably closer to your situation, Incubus, than the other posters. I never studied or took notes. My group of friends would sit in class then leave and go eat and talk and pretty much ignore what we learned. In the end I ended up with a few 'A’s, several 'B’s and, the bane of my exisitance (UNIX) I just couldn’t pass if my life depended on it. Even when I tried!
So the standing, among my friends, was one of them pretty much got straight 'A’s without trying. My marks went from 4.3 GPA to 3.5 in 1 year because of my friends but pretty much stayed there. Many of the rest failed (I didn’t complete college either).
Don’t you worry about it Incubus. In the end, I make more money than all my friends who graduated from College…something I like to poke at them every once in a while.
I hate those people too, Incubis. It’s one of the reasons I’m glad I went to a university with an untraditional grading system, because it cut down on the competitiveness between students. I was a pretty good student, but I couldn’t measure up with those people who got straight As seemingly without trying. It made my life more peaceful in college knowing that we weren’t competing for letter grades. (Of course, they’ve gone and changed the system now, so everyone gets grades; fortunately, I got out before the change was enacted.)
I managed to get through uni working 12 hours a week and walked away with a double first. I’m not sure if it was because I was smarter than the average student, but I could just “get” stuff quicker and see how to apply it straight away.
There are some people who can look at some things and just ‘know’ it with little repetative learning.
There are others who can study, study, study and still not make the grade.
Sometimes you may find that the thing you keep on studying, studying, studying for is actually not worth it as you may never fully comprehend all of the nuances.
You may be better off changing what you’re studying for to see if there is something else that you can learn.
I fall into my 1st category with most IT related things and the 2nd with regards to grammer so I didn’t chose a career in teaching but one in IT.
This really put things into prespective. See, in my ranty anger I failed to look at the big picture. I am a full-time student and have 2 part-time jobs which, combined, take up 22-24 hours a week. Last semester I was taking 17 units with that.
So maybe its not so much that I’m stupid, but just overworked. Even still, I don’t think I’d be able to replace work with 22-24 more hours/week of studying shudder.
Make sure your studying is done by reading the material over a couple of times, each day or so, rather than one massive cram before the exam. That gets you the maximum retention for the time spent. And making notes helps get it in there, too, which I’m sure you already knew. Oh yeah, and make sure you’re learning according to your personal style. If you’re like me, you can get all your learning from reading and do fine. Some people learn from hearing, others from doing.
oh boy am i screwed.
i have an exam tomorrow.
big one.
crammed today and will do 2 hours in the morning before the paper.
it’s combined neuroscience paper, which means one psychiatry q, one neurophysiology q and to top the bastard off, a neurochemistry q.
fucking hell.
Incubus, i can recommend that if you find interesting things easier to learn, you use mnemonics.
for instance
“the lingual never took a swerve around the hyoglossus,
well i’ll be fucked, said Wharton’s duct,
the bastard’s double crossed us”
is easier to remember than
“the lingual nerve passes medially to hyoglossus on the medial aspect of the mandible, and courses anterio-superior to blah blah blah”
you get me?
i have HUNDREDS of the things.
mostly for anatomy, and almost all are filthy.
i remember that a metabolite of Noradrenaline is vanillymandelic acid by picturing Nelson Mandela eating an icecream with Nora Jones.
I’m one of those types that shows up, writes next to nothing down, occasionally works some math out on his arm but in general all writing is a random single word. Straight A’s in Elementary, Middle, getting straight A’s in college, 4 and 5 on all AP tests, and my senior year of HS I had A’s in everything.
On the other hand, I had a B-/C+ average for my first three years of HS, because teachers did not weight grades and getting 96+ on tests and labs were negligible next to a 60 in homework, due to the sheer mass of HW.
As for Irish
Reminds me of that little trick my bio teacher taught me for Domain-Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species…
I guess I’m a bastard. I’m a horrible student, but I’m good at one thing: I write a mean essay. Between High School and College, my GPA jumped a full grade, while my study habits became even worse than before. Especially once I realized how few professors bothered with attendence.
If it makes you feel any better, my one useful skill in college life(essay writing) has been worth jack-squat in my professional life (machinist).
Incubus, you sound pretty overworked - 20+ hours a week of work plus a full class schedule is rough.
Tune in, turn on, join the seminary?
irishgirl, you must be a big hit at all the parties with your filthy anatomy rhymes.
And me, well, I was a bastard in high school, but in college I said, fuck it, I’m not going to do any work, and earned a whole lot of Bs with some As and Cs tossed into the mix. My favorite report card was when I got an A, B, C, and D all in the same semester.
