Learning to prioritize ... but is that a good thing?
Uni has been a great place to learn new things. A great place to broaden your horizons. To get the chance to play new sports. To experience different cultures. I’ve realized, though, that throughout your time as a Uni student, you adapt skills that aren’t taught via textbook.
For example, it isn’t a secret that at Uni we are given hours worth of homework, and for those of us doing afterschool activities, this can mean not even starting on work until 9 p.m. So what do we do?
We find a way out of it. We do the important time-consuming work once we get home. Then you save the “quick homework” to do during free periods and lunch. If there’s anything that is left over, you get online and ask for help from people who have already completed it, asking questions about how to best approach the homework (e.g., “Do you really have to do the reading?” or “How long did it take you?”)
I guess some people would call this prioritizing, but it’s a type of prioritizing that isn’t really benefiting you.
It also doesn’t help when each teacher thinks that their class is the most important class, seeming completely oblivious to the fact that each student has up to seven other classes as well. “Oh, it’s a little over 30 minutes worth of homework, but you should be able to get it done,” doesn’t hold true if each teacher gives out 45 minutes of homework instead of the regular 30. That can potentially be up to two hours extra! And we only ‘prioritize’ even more.
As the history department might point out, it is just one giant feedback cycle.
— Lizzy Warner
Comments
Sometimes I wish I could treat every single class as if it were the most important class. That is, give my math homework the full attention it deserves, and my physics work the full attention it deserves, and my english work the full attention it deserves, and my history work and journalism work etc. It’s actually kind of depressing sometimes—I know I could do better in my subjects if each subject was the only one on my plate.
-Ben
Posted by: Ben Hyman | January 23, 2007 11:07 PM