You know something is wrong when the pedestrians around you begin to change from foot to cross-country skis out of convenience. Today was full out horrid white out conditions, but my university never closes. Therefore I still walked my 35 minutes to campus. Luckily I am familiar enough with the area that it is not necessary to keep my eyes open the entire time. That is the only part that is truly bothersome: snow pelting your eyes.
It was 8am and I began the trek through the city, with my eyes closed mostly. If someone wanted to steal something from me, it would have been very easy, but requiring them to come outside; which I am sure would have deterred anyone from the task.
I refuse to waste one of my three allotted absences for my early class just because of a blizzard. After my extremely wet arrival to class my professor walks in, completely dry. I have yet to understand how, but I would guess that he has a parking space in the garage attached to that building (and commuting students are put in lots that are about a half of a mile away at best, even if they are physically unable to walk that far. Alas, I digress).
He begins to write on the board, notes from our latest assignment. It doesn't take me long to realize that these are all of the bones he has to pick with us. They are mostly comprised of grammatical errors and things in general he doesn't want. I see an entire sentence of what I wrote go up and in comparison with the other notes that are only one word I feel the "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" rising within me. He starts his usual manner of "teaching" where he barks at us, though a large percentage of the grade is participation; and of course, we cannot get a word in edgewise. He comes to the sentence of mine, which is grammatically correct, and asks what's wrong with it.
The response: "Everything"
This is for a literature course and my theme of a play was completely wrong. Quite frankly, I do not believe that it was. It merely was not what he was looking for.
I was initially taught in literary analysis that a theme had to be a statement. Something that stated a truth or an opinion. However this doesn't quite fit in with the sparknotes definition. Oddly, last semester in 400-level literature courses themes were mere ideas such as love, hate, hierarchy or abuse of power and later explained to express more of an opinion. As though to say that literature is so interpretive that it could be saying one thing or the complete opposite depending on how you see things. Do you take the work and put it in a more modern context or do you try to keep it in the era in which it was written, should you do both?
Is this a step back? Is it more advanced or more primitive to have one word themes that are later explained? Now I am expected to make vague statements as themes. I suppose that is a halfway point between the two extremes on literary analysis, but proves something to me. That in fact you will be expected to do something different in every place and probably with every teacher you have.
If it is an issue of place it really is disheartening. This is simple to explain: the Spanish department in overcrowded. It is practically impossible to enroll in classes, because they are always full. I am by no means one of the last to enroll each semester and all of the classes are full. I am not fortunate enough to know any students who will have their last semester this upcoming semester so that I can pay them to hold a spot in a class for me (real classy system, eh?). Advisors now recommend studying abroad to get these credits, because of this phenomenon. I will have to study abroad again if I intend to graduate on time. What does this tell you? I will obtain a degree from this institution, but none of the skills I will have in my area of specialization will be from this institution. In fact my current skills do not reflect on this institution because this is my first class here that even counts towards my major. I could only make it into one class for my major this semester because of this system. To exacerbate things, the study abroad programs are filling up and courses at the foreign universities are starting to have the same problem.
This whole disaster of a class and of a system just made me think about how little care is left around the world. General human empathy seems to have left this city, if not the state, country, world, universe or whatever.
Luckily it also reinforces my rule that if I ever give negative feedback I need to give positive feedback and if possible double the positive feedback to counteract the negative.
It only took a long walk through very deep snow trying to allow all vehicles to pass (safer than trying to make them stop and lose control of the car) to subdue my frustration.
Comments (1)
OMG thank you for having a sense of humor! Some people thought I really had a harem of guys to put through an obstacle course and were so rude about it. You have given me hope that some people know fiction when they read it.