UNITED STATES—School is back in session for most people, and for me it was slightly daunting to find myself back in a classroom after being MIA for nearly 8 years as I began the journey to work on my graduate degree. Was I nervous about being in a classroom again? Not quite, I’m the type of person that just wants to get class over with as soon as possible. The quicker the material can be presented, deciphered and digested the better in my opinion.
There are always those professors who do there absolute best to utilize ever single moment of the scheduled class time, which actually baffles me because sometimes it makes little to no sense. You don’t have to over-extend the class period if there is no need to do so. I can recall only 1 professor my entire time as an undergraduate student who DID NOT care about the scheduled time frame.
Her thinking was as long as we discuss and cover the material, once we’re done, we’re done. Note: this was a class that was scheduled to last for 3 hours, and on average we’d get out of class each day about after an hour of discussing the material and cinema.
I think being older, places one in that respective field where the focus is more on taking one’s career or life experiences to new heights. When you’re an undergraduate for the most part (those in the late teens, early 20s) the focus is getting your education. You’re not as focused on what happens next, which I can fully admit now that I’m reflecting back on that time in my life. Now, that is not the case. It’s laser focus; mingle with other classmates, master the material and focus on taking my career to the next level. No complacency, reach new heights people, reach new heights people. That is what matters most.
Another thing I personally hate about the first day of classes is the fact that so many teachers make it a mission of dragging out the day. I mean it’s the first day, give us the syllabus for the course, go over the important details and allow students the hunt to go find books for the course. I really hate when teachers dive right in.
I mean you seriously cannot expect students to come to class with books on day 1 without a syllabus or uncertainty if they’re even going to keep the class to begin with. What’s worse is so many schools kick off class a week before the Labor Day weekend, when in all honesty they should just start classes after Labor Day. Why have that small interruption in classes when you don’t have to people. Teachers should not assume all their students are as dumb as a bag of rocks; I can’t tell you how many professors I have encountered who just look down on their students and treat them as if they’re a lesser counterpart.
It really sucks at the collegiate level because your academic career is in the hands of this particular individual and in most cases there isn’t much you can really do to change the situation. Professors need to give a bit more credit to the intellect of the students they are teaching. People are NOT as stupid or shallow as some come to think. We might not be credentialed to teach a course, but that does not mean we don’t have the capabilities to do so.
The first day always tends to be the worse. Getting use to the professor, getting use to your classmates, getting comfortable with a particular seat in the classroom and getting used to the course material. Once the first day has come and gone, things become a lot easier, and you become more relaxed in the classroom. One thing I think should become a focus is shortening the semester. Do we actually need 4 months to teach a course? I honestly don’t think so, it all depends on how the material is taught and if the focus is on what is IMPORTANT instead of what is simply known as filler material.
