Author’s Note: I wrote this post almost a month ago. I’ve been sitting on it, not sure if I wanted to publish it because it seems too whiney. But I’ve decided to go ahead and post it, if for another reason than my own recollection. Feel free to skip this one. 
I was warned on several occasions last year about junior. Junior year, it seems, is the hump, AKA the most difficult year in undergrad. Well if the first term of the year is any indication, the third year is indeed the hump.
While my two engineering classes last term were a little more difficult than those in my sophomore year, I found what really added to the difficulty wasn’t the content itself, but rather the quantity of content. There was simply a shit load of things to get done. Always. It never ended.
For the first five weeks of the ten week term I was spending 70-90 hours (or so) a week on campus. If I wasn’t in class I was doing homework. If I wasn’t doing homework I was reading. If I wasn’t reading then I was studying. I’m learning that this is the difficulty of getting an engineering degree. It’s not that anything is really that hard, it’s that you have a lot to do all the fucking time.
In the end though, it really makes the whole college experience less than enjoyable. And by “less than enjoyable” I mean it sucks donkey balls. Next term is looking like it’s going to be quite a bit worse. I expect next term to be the make-or-break term. Though I’ve given myself permission drop a class if it looks like it’s going to be a “break” sort of term.
I didn’t expect college to be one big party, but I am admittedly surprised at how much effort is required. What bothers me about the whole thing is that it’s all artificial. It’s not a lot of work because I’m in the process of some unbelievable undertaking. This past term two of my four professors admitted to me that they make the course extra difficult so that students don’t treat their classes “like a blow off class.” As I’m hoping you’d guess, these were my two non-engineering classes.
I eventually realized that my chemistry professor talked tougher than he taught and backed off on my studying. However my economics professor made the class more so much more painful than it had to be and kept it painful for the duration of the Fall term. This is college. This is the mediocre nonsense you have to put up with. To be perfectly frank, I believe this is the only situation where I would be able to start and finish college. I’m 33, I’ve drained my savings account, I’ve eaten up the equity I liquidated from my house, and I have no other sincere options other than to finish. If I was 18 I’d probably have walked away from this.
Now that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy learning. I’ve taken some classes that have been awesome from start to finish. I loved physics and think it would be fun to go deeper if I had the time and money. I completely get the draw math has for some people, and why they choose to spend their lives trying to grasp the math of our universe. My engineering classes regularly entertain and inpsire me. But I’ve been learning new things pretty consistently during my adult life, long before enrolled in a university. My problem with college isn’t the learning. It’s the anti-learning. It’s the hoop jumping. It’s the classes I have to take because of silly requirements which don’t teach me more, but force me to learn less in order complete whatever tasks have been laid before me in order to get a reasonable grade.
Bah! Grumble grumble grumble!! I know, tiny violins right? That’s OK. I’ll spend the coming terms living at the library. I’ll get the degree. But I’ll never, ever, ever concede that this is the way to educate.
…grumble…
