I remember back in college I used to really dislike the pressure of being forced to study my ass off. I always enjoyed learning, but I hated feeling like I was being threatened (with failure or withholding a degree) if I didn’t study enough.
I’ve always done tons of independent learning both while at college and after I got out. But I miss the structure of school that required cramming and studying hard to learn information about a wide variety of subjects. I feel my brain has become flabby in a way. I wonder if military recruits who enjoy doing physical activity get out of boot camp feel the same way about physical exercise. You still enjoy it and are glad you aren’t being forced to do it, but you miss the structure and being pushed to your limits.
I really can’t work up the self discipline to force myself to cram unless I have some external goal like an important test. But I miss doing that. I haven’t spent 6 hours pushing myself hard to learn tons of new information in a long time. Now when I learn new info it is a more leisurely pace.
One of the things I used to do in college was give myself mental projects to work on. I’d find a subject I enjoyed and spend about 2-3 weeks learning everything I could about that, finding new research on it and tying things together. I need to make another mental project for myself. I am getting really bored and my mind is turning into mincemeat. God I’m bored.
Oh, I hear ya. I get very testy and complainy when I don’t have a big mental project in the works. I spent about a year in that type of mood before I broke down and signed up for grad school. Sadly, I recently graduated and am getting to that point again. I’ve tried to brush up on my history knowledge through independent study but to no avail, it just isn’t hard enough. Anyone got any mental project ideas that can keep someone busy? The boredom of everyday life is settling in again.
I’m thinking of working on a way to improve academic abilities and fluid intelligence via various supplements, cognitive exercises, physical exercises, vitamins, meditations, lifestyle changes etc.
However, if that works out them I’m right back where I fucking started, aren’t I (not feeling challenged and feeling bored)? Except it’ll be worse.
No, don’t miss it at all. Working on a project until 3 in the morning and getting up at 6 to go to work was not the highlight of my week at my last job.
I don’t miss it, but it gave me a hell of a lot of good training. I was a history major; I would routinely crank out 15-page term papers at 2 AM right before they were due, fueled by cigarettes and Scotch…and get As on them. I rarely ever completed any paper more than 10 hours before its due date. There were some really stressful nights; man, did it feel good to sleep when those papers were finally done and handed in!
Now, at my current job, I can get $200 for a 1000 word article. $80 for 400 words. And this is the most entry-level writing job there is. This is like a joke! 1000 words is nothing for me; it’s done in 15 minutes. 400 words is absolutely nothing. It takes me three or four minutes to compose an article that long. The challenge for me is condensing it all down! It makes me laugh to think of how easy my current job is compared with how tough it was taking 400-level history courses.
I miss it. I miss exams and the sense of worth generated by grades. There’s an episode of the Simpsons where the teachers are on strike, and Lisa desperately asks Marge “Grade me!!” Sometimes I feel like that. I also seem to learn and work best under pressure, so without the exam to cram for, it’s not easy to pick up a textbook and decide I want to study for a while in my free time. I’ve tried - it doesn’t stay in.
I miss structured learning. I do some continuing education courses for my profession, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I will eventually (within 5 years) go back to school and get a special certificate in Blood Banking, but it’s not something I can tackle at this point in my life.
I miss it too although a mental note to myself to always remember how incredibly stressful it could be sometimes. Continued professional learning is pretty easy in comparison. The first semester of my senior year of college, I screwed up and made a B on the mid-term on my undergraduate mentor’s psychopharmacology exam. There were only two tests in that class, a mid-term and a final, and that was it for the entire grade. He is one of the most decorated teachers at my alma mater and he was pissed beyond belief at me and explained that the only way I could get the ‘A’ he expected me to get all along was to get a perfect score on his final exam and the closest that anyone had ever come to that was another student in his lab that got 95% and he held her up on a pedestal.
It wasn’t a good situation and I had three other exams to study for as well. I literally stayed up for over 72 hours straight studying and I not only got every single regular question on my mentor’s final exam right, I got the bonus essay perfectly as well for a total score of 103% and I got my ‘A’. That was probably my most proud academic stunt that I ever pulled off. I got 'A’s on the other exams as well and knew it when I left them so I decided to go out partying for another night of no sleep. That ended up in true hallucinations and a collapse that is better left for another story later. I did smaller versions of that a number of times and often got a literal high from it as soon as it was over. I think I am physically and mentally capable of still doing that type of thing now but it can be very intense and I would have to scale back a lot if it came up because I have small kids now.
I went back to school last year to get my masters degree, eight years after I received my bachelors. So, obviously I don’t miss it, I experience it daily.
What I do miss is working. Getting a paycheck every two weeks, paying off my debt instead of contributing to it, being able to come home and relax because I’m done for the day and now I get to watch a DVD or read whatever the fuck I want instead of having to write a paper or do a shitload of reading or problems sets. Even right now I’m feeling guilty because I should be reading for my urban planning class instead of screwing around on a Saturday.
I got my BS several months ago, after screwing around in college on and off for the past twenty years. I just started work on my MS, and at this point I really can’t see going through with it. I’ve about had it with the whole school thing, and I’m thinking I’d much rather get on with my life. But then I remember the economy isn’t so hot right now… sigh.
Add a 1 hr drive to work (into the rising sun) and a conference call first thing in the morning with people who will be hostile to the project and you have the start of a wonderful day.
Syllabus + Calendar + Planning should eliminate the need for cramming. Although a tough finals week combined with sleep deprivation and caffiene hyperdosing does add something to Pink Floyd.
The problem with cramming is that you do not retain what you cram - your brain needs time to retain and store the stuff.
This was it exactly. While in school, there was always a feeling that something needed to be done. Even between school terms I was planning for the upcoming term. It wasn’t until I was completely done with in-class, structured learning that I felt liberated from that overhanging feeling. Of course, the academic onus was quickly replaced by the responsibility of making a living, raising a family, moving ahead in my career, paying for the kids’ education, and saving for retirement. But these latter concerns were not as bad because I could share the load with others. While in school, you’re on your own. No one studied for you. No one took the tests for you. So, I definitely do not miss all the studying and test-taking.
What I Did When I Felt This Way: I chose an author I liked and read everything he ever wrote, and then a buncha stuff about him too. Worked the hell out of my interlibrary loan system so there was always the next item waiting for me and I wouldn’t get out of the rhythm of it. When I got down to the obscure stuff the libraries didn’t have, I had the fun project of finding and buying the missing links on ABE. Since no one was making me write papers on my project it was okay that it took a year. Great payoff–toward the end, I understood what was going on with zone clarity. The pain was that I was dying everywhere to talk about it and no one else was interested–I had to be all noble about it, art for art’s sake, blah, blah, blah.
I want to do it again, but the target would probably be Dickens, and I’m not sure I’m ready to commit.