diatribe
a thought occurred to me just now, as i'm reading, the american community college (cohen & brawer, 2003)... well, actually, many thoughts occurred to me when i read, i have reading ADD unfortunately.
anyway, my thought was this: in the first meeting of my community college class, the instructor told us that as far as he's concerned, everyone in the class is going to be getting either an A or a B. from that statement, it's pretty obvious that we're gonna have to work at getting anything below that grade.
okay, so here's my point: why would a grown man wear denim overalls?
okay, no, that's not my point. but it is a bit disconcerting, isn't it?
so, i remember mark telling me that that's what graduate school is about. getting A's and B's isn't very difficult. but you really have to fuck up to get C's and D's.
as much i would love to believe that, i have to disagree. i think getting A's requires a bit of work. granted, it may not appear to be the case with my horrific work ethic, but still, you can't just churn out papers after papers without doing a good amount of reading and have the ability to write at a graduate level.
this is where most of my friends, mark included, would wonder then how the fuck did YOU get that ability? personally, i think as far as grammar is concern, i'm not terribly good at using it. i get my tenses all mixed up. sometimes, i fuck up my word usage and sentence structure. that's why i've made it a point (in graduate school) that every paper i write will be proof read by someone other than me. i think last year, i had one paper that i had to proof read myself, and that (thankfully) went okay.
those are my weaknesses. my strength, and this is me talking, is in formulating the idea of the paper. i think more so than undergrad, i am able to clearly put down my thoughts in a coherent (case in point, i put cohesive manner originally... but it didn't sound exactly right to me, so i looked it up) manner. certainly, if i was that bad a writer, as some people make me out to be, i wouldn't be doing this well in my classes.
then there are those who believe that 'sc is a second-rate institution of higher education. maybe they are right and maybe they are not. but how much value can you put on those who never experienced matriculation at the graduate level?* who is to say that getting a masters in physics is more difficult than getting a masters in english? who is to say that being in a graduate program at harvard is much more difficult than that of long beach st.? certainly, it depends on an individual's ability to determine such things.
mind you, i'm not talking about prestige. maybe learning physics at long beach st. is much more difficult than studying english at harvard. who knows? this is a pretty subjective matter.
anyway, i think that there are things we are good at and things that we are not so good at. if i were in a physics graduate program, i would for sure fail miserably. like someone once said... you just need to be good at one thing. you don't need to be good at many things. just one.
so i make it a point to be good at my one thing... being rude and obnoxious.
*this is not a knock on those who having been to grad school. the point i was trying to make is how can a person be knowledgeable about something that they've never experienced? and please don't make the drug comparison...
anyway, my thought was this: in the first meeting of my community college class, the instructor told us that as far as he's concerned, everyone in the class is going to be getting either an A or a B. from that statement, it's pretty obvious that we're gonna have to work at getting anything below that grade.
okay, so here's my point: why would a grown man wear denim overalls?
okay, no, that's not my point. but it is a bit disconcerting, isn't it?
so, i remember mark telling me that that's what graduate school is about. getting A's and B's isn't very difficult. but you really have to fuck up to get C's and D's.
as much i would love to believe that, i have to disagree. i think getting A's requires a bit of work. granted, it may not appear to be the case with my horrific work ethic, but still, you can't just churn out papers after papers without doing a good amount of reading and have the ability to write at a graduate level.
this is where most of my friends, mark included, would wonder then how the fuck did YOU get that ability? personally, i think as far as grammar is concern, i'm not terribly good at using it. i get my tenses all mixed up. sometimes, i fuck up my word usage and sentence structure. that's why i've made it a point (in graduate school) that every paper i write will be proof read by someone other than me. i think last year, i had one paper that i had to proof read myself, and that (thankfully) went okay.
those are my weaknesses. my strength, and this is me talking, is in formulating the idea of the paper. i think more so than undergrad, i am able to clearly put down my thoughts in a coherent (case in point, i put cohesive manner originally... but it didn't sound exactly right to me, so i looked it up) manner. certainly, if i was that bad a writer, as some people make me out to be, i wouldn't be doing this well in my classes.
then there are those who believe that 'sc is a second-rate institution of higher education. maybe they are right and maybe they are not. but how much value can you put on those who never experienced matriculation at the graduate level?* who is to say that getting a masters in physics is more difficult than getting a masters in english? who is to say that being in a graduate program at harvard is much more difficult than that of long beach st.? certainly, it depends on an individual's ability to determine such things.
mind you, i'm not talking about prestige. maybe learning physics at long beach st. is much more difficult than studying english at harvard. who knows? this is a pretty subjective matter.
anyway, i think that there are things we are good at and things that we are not so good at. if i were in a physics graduate program, i would for sure fail miserably. like someone once said... you just need to be good at one thing. you don't need to be good at many things. just one.
so i make it a point to be good at my one thing... being rude and obnoxious.
*this is not a knock on those who having been to grad school. the point i was trying to make is how can a person be knowledgeable about something that they've never experienced? and please don't make the drug comparison...
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