Thursday, 5/8/97 Hypocrisy honored by degree Professors cram
quarters with material, make students forgo thought, retain only
what’s required
By Bryan Szabo Let’s be candid. We really don’t have time to be
anything else, now do we? Oh, go ahead and spin. Tell me you have
time to do all the things that need to get done. Tell me you read
every word on every line on every page of every book that’s
assigned to you each quarter. Tell me you don’t swap answers with
conspiratorial buddies in lab class. Tell me you don’t skip tedious
lectures except on midterms and finals. Tell me you don’t buy APS
notes when they’re available because Thank God it’s cheaper than
the hassle and tedium of taking them yourself. There’s a very big
lie being perpetrated at this institution and I’ve told myself a
thousand times to shut up about it. Anyone who knows me will
testify that I’m constantly ranting to the wind, to the sea, to
heedless birds, to cloudless puffs of spring-blue sky. But it’s my
last quarter at UCLA and I’m feeling quite sick about it. Not about
leaving, actually, which isn’t hard at all. But at not having been.
Don’t get uppity with me. I know what you’re thinking before you
even say it. "Bryan," you’ll write with the smugness of the petty,
"you haven’t availed yourself of the ample opportunities. Any
shortcomings you mention in this letter are merely a reflection of
your own. The question is not what UCLA lacks but what you have
failed to manifest in your individual performance. Goodbye and
farewell. Go Bruins." Yep, I already know all about it. And that’s
okay, because you have no idea what I’m talking about. School for
you is like summer camp or watching "Singled Out" on MTV. You tune
in, you tune out. You go swimming, you drink a kegger or two, get
laid now and then, move on to the bigger and better. But only if it
pays well. Okay, I’ll cut the crap. Here’s the deal: the more you
want to learn here, the less you will manage to achieve. It sounds
ridiculous, but I have the suspicion that a few people out there
are shaking their heads and saying,"Hallelujah, someone’s finally
put a finger on it!" Because you just don’t have the time to really
get into anything of substance, do you? If I’ve heard it once, I’ve
endured it a thousand times: "Well, I wanted to lecture to you
about the intricacies of the Ottoman Empire, but we don’t have
room, so we’ll have to skip it. Let’s move on to my 45 minutes on
the Crusades." This isn’t an education, it’s a circus slide show.
Step right up now! Have a gander at the writhing petri dish. Behold
our sweeping summations of the past. No personal involvement
required! We realize you’re just passing through town. But we’ll
make it seem as if you’re really here. Only $10,000! Now who’s
first, children? … Every time I plow forward to catch up in one
subject, the others leave me in a cloud of dust and a hi-ho,
Silver. I spend more time jumping barricades and water hazards than
reflecting on what any particular subject means in the greater
context of wisdom and growth, non-disciplinary concentrations you
can’t even minor in. I have realized by now that if I let go and
stop demanding that classes have relevance to my life and values,
the mechanism will run smoother. I’ve experienced this amazing
transformation for myself, so don’t think you’re leading me to any
great revelation when you write in. One of my TAs actually advised
me, "Don’t think – just plug in numbers. It doesn’t have to make
sense." Now there’s practical advice! I’m not really here to learn,
I’m here to get ahead, right? I didn’t seriously think I’d come
away any wiser for the experience, did I? I guess that’s why
there’s counseling. And alcohol. The quarter system is ludicrous.
No one can cover more than three substantial novels (Check Cliff’s
Notes for an authoritative list) or the history of Rome in that
amount of time. But not only do professors try, they triple the
difficulty factor by assigning six more novels and Greece and Egypt
as well. We don’t have time to know any one thing with depth,
wisdom and soul, so we proceed to plow into the subtext of the
entirety of Western civilization. And should we take a class on a
specialized area such as Joyce or Hume, why then we have to read
everything they ever wrote their entire lives! Anything else would
be, why, unscholarly. Science classes for the non-scientist are
probably the best examples of the worst violations to common sense
and proportion. We are told how necessary biology and physics and
chemistry and astronomy are to expand our knowledge of human
accomplishment, and then we are buried under a ton of mind-bending
formulas and obscure calculations. I have nothing against math.
Difficulty is not the problem. Obscurity is – obfuscating
introductory general-education subjects with a cornucopia of drivel
to force-feed bulimic short-term memory, Herculean minutia,
ceaseless microscopic charts and precious anatomical distinctions,
which will subdue and sodomize any shred of curiosity or any
authentic attempt at understanding what professors would never dare
stoop to "popularize." Heaven forbid we come out learning the
breadth and beauty of the universe in everyday language! Carl
Sagan’s famous "Billions and billions of years ago" is not possible
at this institution without first expressing the equation in
scientific notation and taking the square root and multiplying by
its inverse. Why? Because anything less wouldn’t be scientific.
Come on, tell me. Tell me how much of last quarter’s lectures you
retain only five weeks into the new one. Tell me how much will
remain years from now, when you are closing the deal, designing the
latest web tools and mending the fractured leg. That’s right.
You’ll retain only what you need. Because you only had time to
learn what was required. To think beyond assignments was never part
of the deal. No one has to think. Even the professors who tell you
they are sick of the formulaic pabulum are stuck with TAs who
gleefully scrawl flowing red testimonies to your lack of tact and
procedure. It’s hypocrisy of the highest magnitude, I say, because
this is a so-called elite institution. Elite, as in, "We dare you
to come away with anything of real value." Is that how we define
education today? But boy, I sure am employable. I guess that means
I should shut up – I got my money’s worth. What in the hell was I
thinking? I was thinking nothing, sir, why nothing at all.