Throughout high school parents, professors, and many other people assured me I wouldn’t be able to procrastinate in college like I did in high school and get good grades. I realized quite quickly, this year, that keeping my bad habits and still getting good grades was a piece of cake. What took me until the end of the year to realize was that you can’t really learn in college unless you stop procrastinating. While I’m sad it took me this long to figure out this fundamental truth about learning, I remember that many professors still haven’t figured this out(Not Professor Tsank though. Keep up the good work!).

This year, and in particular this semester, elucidated many things about my education. Firstly, I need to actually care about learning the material, not just getting a good grade. What’s the point of spending 4 years and a ton of money if you’re not going to actually learn any skills? That’s what khan academy and Youtube are for, and they’re free!

Secondly, taking an English/humanities class every semester, despite being a stem kid, is so important! Rhetoric has allowed me the chance to exercise my ability to analytically formulate arguments and have meaningful discussions with others who care about subjects at hand. This skill has proven to be applicable in many of my classes and day to day conversations. I’m very fortunate that our class was talkative and challenged many of my arguments so I could grow stronger as a conversationalist. 

Lastly, online school sucks. It goes against all the realizations that I’ve made this semester. 

It has shown me which professors really care about their students learning the material (Professor Tsank!!!), and which think it’s a great idea to shove material down your throat until you give up and fail(many professors in the math department!!!). All I’ve done since Spring Break is bullshit after bullshit and I’ve learned nothing at all. This time is difficult for everyone, but especially for that reason should more professors understand student’s struggles. I do not believe it is fair, nor effective, to be putting this level of academic pressure on students and still expect them to learn at the same level as, or greater than, when they had campus resources available to them.

I loved this class and the great professor who taught it. It crushed me to say goodbye to y’all the last time we met in person. Hopefully your professors are a lot cooler than mine. Wish you all the best!

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