I could sleep, but I have some things on my mind. I just want to say how much I love the world that we live in. I love technology, and that almost anything we want to know about is literally at our fingertips. I am going to give you an example of what I am talking about. In my eyes, school, in a lot of ways, is a waste of time, and definitely a drain emotionally, physically, and mentally. I believe that this drain that school causes hurts us far more than it helps us. To paraphrase a professor: I don't understand testing. In real life you can use a book, you can ask a colleague if you don't completely understand something, and the internet is right there. I have thought this for years. The fact that a professor said this made me so happy. Finally, a teacher that understands! Anyway, this is a lot leading up to what I was originally going to say. I had an assignment due tonight in a class that I absolutely hate, One of those classes that you have to take for your program, but the class is pretty much just a lot of busy work that no one, except that annoying person in the front of the class that speaks way too much, wants to do. Speaking of that annoying person in the front of the class. How is it that in every single class there is one of those people? Without fail there will be someone sitting in the front of the room that thinks 1. that they are hilarious, 2. that everyone wants to listen to everything they have to say, and 3. that everything that they say is brilliant even though it is clear that they are a little mentally on the slow side. Then there is the other person you hate in the class. The over achiever. The person that when the test is graded based in the high score they scored 100% when everyone else got 75%. I respect this person for the time and effort that they put into their education. I respect that they work hard for their full ride scholarship and their 4.0. But, I hate this person because of cases such as the aforementioned testing scenario. To me life isn't about memorizing a bunch of information that I will likely forget the second the semester is over. Life is about having fun and learning through experiences, and out of interest. I get off subject a lot, for that I apologize. I am just very passionate about how horrible the education system is. Back to what I was saying. I hate my class. Tonight I had an assignment due on a subject that I care nothing about. My mom keeps telling me that since I have to take the class to graduate that I just need to find the "lesson(s) I need to learn" from the class. My problem is that the way my brain thinks doesn't allow me to do that when I know that the class has nothing to do with what I plan to do with my degree. So I had to read something and then answer an essay question about it on blackboard, if you don't know what that is it is basically an extension of the class that is online. Well I am about to read this bogus essay on the paradox of nothing and infinity, which to be honest is an interesting subject, but at this time in my life I could really care less about it because I am trying to educate myself on things relevant to my degree, which is Music and Visual Technologies. If I wanted to learn about the paradox of nothing and infinity I would just google it and read up on it. Funny I mention googling it, because that is exactly what I had to do. As I looked for the reading assignment I realized that I didn't have it (I am pretty sure that it was a print out, and for some reason I didn't get it). So I went to blackboard where there were links to PDF versions of our reading assignments. Well my teacher in this class happens to be that annoying person in the front of the room in this class, and because he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, the PDF version of our reading that he uploaded was sideways. There was no way I was about to read, sideways, a most likely 20+ page essay written by someone that is extremely long winded, and uses words that only a person that reads the dictionary front to back would know. So instead of reading this piece of crap I opened the essay question in blackboard and read it. I was hoping that I would be able to BS it, but unfortunately I didn't completely understand the concept it was asking me to explain. Up until this point I had no idea what the essay would be about. So I googled it a few times using different key words, and omitting certain words. Then, after a few times I found a forum where someone was discussing exactly what I needed to know. JACKPOT! Here is where education pisses me right off! In 4 sentences this guy in the forum explained what I would have been reading about for probably 30 minutes. It really angers me how much education is like this. I am the kind of person that doesn't want to hear about all the crap that people have to say. I want the facts, and to be able to understand the concept. Any more information then that, and I am just wasting my precious brain space.
Just to vent slightly more. Want to know another reason that education angers me? Well if you said no too bad because I am gonna tell you anyway. I started college with a completely optimistic outlook. I wanted to be a music major more than anything in this world. I had an idea of how I wanted to do things, and a very unique outlook on life. What I began noticing after a few years of college is how many people began adopting horrible professor's opinions on things. I could see people getting these ideas in their heads that I knew were very skewed. These professors that you are suppose to trust were teaching not facts, but their opinions. Many of them were breeding new horrible versions of themselves to plant all over the world. What I began to notice is that pretty much every student took the professors word as an absolute fact. These poor students had no idea, and were too young and impressionable to understand what was happening. I can think of the first instances of my noticing this happening. At Dixie State College where I wasted 3 years of my life, and ultimately ruined my chance of being a real musician with a degree that actually was more than just a piece of paper. There was a professor, who shall remain nameless. This professor taught music lessons. He told all of his students exactly what they wanted to hear. He told them that they were amazing, and that they had an incredible talent. That they could be pro. When I heard them perform I wanted to kill myself to get out of the room because it was so awful. That might be an exaggeration, but it was bad. He was lying to these students to get them to keep taking lessons, and to make them believe that they were something that they were not. Another instance that I can think of was when a different professor, who also shall not be named, was conducting. There was a 9/8 measure. This measure was to be conducted in a pattern where there were 9 distinct beats marked by the ictus of the baton. I hope you are following this. Well every time this professor would conduct this passage of music he would conduct 8 beats. He would then get angry at the students for not following him. It was obvious, at least to me, that it was him that was making the mistake. I raised my hand to tell him, and he just got mad at me. This wasn't the only occurrence of this teacher doing this either. It is just the one that sticks out in my mind the most.
Another thing about college education that I would like to point out is General Education. I am pretty sure that I already went to high school. So basically, I get to repeat what I did in high school, and pay, out of pocket for most people, thousands of dollars to do it all over again? This is to get an Associate Degree. In many colleges, at least in Utah, to get a bachelors degree in a certain discipline area you have to take what is basically upper division general ed classes. Usually about 15 or 16 credits. I think at Utah State they called them depth courses. They should have called them debt courses, because unless my math is wrong, which it isn't, 15 or 16 credits is an extra semester of classes. So basically what they are doing is getting an extra semester of tuition out of you, and they say it is to round you as an individual. I say Bull Crap! You just want an extra semester of tuition out of me so that the college can make money. Roughly 20,000 people graduated with a bachelors degree in Utah last year. Let's say that the average tuition is $2,000. That is approximately $40,000,000 dollars that was made in that extra semester of depth courses. Yeah, that is a real statistic. Do you really think that they have our education and our interests at heart? Haha, I seriously doubt it. I have nothing against educating ourselves, but I have a serious problem with the education system in our country. I find it difficult to take a class on something when I can find a tutorial on youtube that pretty much does the trick. Is it credible? I don't really know, but from my experience teachers aren't always credible sources either. Just something to think about.
I am sorry that this post wasn't exactly funny, but it is my blog and I don't get paid to make you laugh, yet, so I can write about whatever I want. So there!
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