Final Exams!? Don't give me false hope..

Reflecting on another lengthy semester that has had little in the way of real, academia-related memories, it has dawned on me that perhaps university-level education is not exactly as rigorous as might be expected. Not that being grilled on four to six chapters per class every four weeks doesn't put me through my intellectual paces, but I can't help feeling that there must be a better way to learn.

We've been trained to read a textbook, then regurgitate the information on an exam, like some twisted mother sparrow. Instead of nourishing a life, though, we're feeding a system that churns out mindless clones who have been conditioned to follow a certain pattern. We're taught complex equations, entire histories for mighty civilizations, and artistic perspectives by the dozen. The most sinister part of that thought is the "we". In one class here at university, we have about one hundred people. One hundred people taught the same equation, the same way of looking at things through the same scope. No wonder people are repetitive and boring. No wonder people are stuck looking for jobs even after college, while employers have a hard time deciding who to hire. It's not that they have too many dedicated and superior applicants... it's that they have a dozen and a half applicants who are all exactly the same. When the next person in line is indistinguishable from the one before or after, what difference does it make who gets hired?

I digress. Final exams are the next link in the monotonous, chain-fence of education. Nothing says "Here, I'm too busy and too under-funded to teach you anything you won't need to re-learn on the job anyway." like being handed a final exam covering seventeen weeks worth of trivial bullshit. We're discouraging intuition, creativity, and empathy by cramming warm bodies into a lecture hall. Each of us is equipped with the latest in cutting-edge, mundane textbooks written by professors so far out of touch with the working world that they no longer have any relevant experience worth sharing. Then, at the end of the semester, we're told to memorize information that will be readily available to us in any job we might find that is related to that field. For five or more (or less) different classes.

Hold on, it gets better. The moment they're done with said final, students immediately purge from their memory the majority of the information they've just spent two weeks mercilessly hammering into their brain. Some students have realized that the information is useless once the required grade is procured; others simply do not care. As if willpower and indifference alone were not enough to wipe our etch-a-sketch brains clean, eighty percent of college students immediately go out and drink enough alcohol over the weekend to kill and preserve an elephant. In the end, a student is lucky to retain maybe ten percent of what they learned - yet the working world carries on, much as it always has. To all you "but the economy is in recession!" idiots, the economy recedes and rebounds because of government intervention - either too much of it, or too little.

On a side note, the fact that we as a society have come to accept that college students will drink themselves stupid is alarming. More to come during a later post.

In the end, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that what students are learning at the university is not really critical for the most part. Of course there are exceptions, but the majority of majors result in superfluous degrees in fields that require little to no formal training, or training that will be offered immediately upon hiring anyway.

Sorry studio art majors. Your subject is fascinating, but a degree really is not necessary if you choose to be an artist. Once you learn to create art like everyone else, you are in fact having your creative edge blunted. So much for higher education.