A Dissertation on the Quality of Education at Purdue University

After Thursday night, I was most prepared to write a scathing post on the absolute lack of quality education in the School of Liberal Arts. This would no doubt have made certain engineers very happy.

However, Kara pointed out that I am far too right-brained to be an engineer, preferring drawing or writing (or a combination!) to solving math equations. Sadly, I haven't had time to post on this important topic until now. But now I am in a totally different state of mind. In layman's terms, my brain is fried. I have just finished a paper for my honors communication (Media & Society) class that is worth two point five zillion points and a major portion of our grades. This makes me think that my education is hard enough after all.

In order to more fully explain why I would ever even entertain for a half a second the idea of being an engineer, let me introduce you to a fellow named Jeremy.

Jeremy is a TA in the sociology department. He assists Dr. Steve Hillis in the teaching, if it can be called that, of Sociology 220, Social Problems. Let it suffice to say that I honestly don't know how SOC 100 can exist, because SOC 220 is as dumbed down as you can get.

Besides falling asleep in lecture with the rest of us, Jeremy administers help sessions before exams. On Thursday night's session, he explained that the test would cover the lectures on the War on Drugs from the last two weeks, as well as chapters 15-18. As always, the test is to be open-book and open-notes. After giving us 5 of the questions off the exam, and the answers (with a "don't tell Hillis" admonition), Jeremy proceeded to give us helpful hints on how to study.

"I recommend skimming through these (chapters)," Jeremy told us. "I don't think you really have to read them. Maybe don't even bothering studying (them). Just know your drugs."

Jeremy also had the wisdom to realize that many people skip class and thus did not get the drug information, which is not in the textbook. "You can listen to the lectures, but who wants to do that? Find someone who took notes."

Jeremy is quite right. I didn't really study for either of the last tests, and I have a 102% in the class. All of these realizations hit me as Kara and I left Beering after the help session. A fifth grader could take this class and pass with flying colors. I put that on my review for Dr. Hillis (don't worry; he won't get it until after I get my final grade.) What in the world am I doing here? Why am I not stretching my horizons and expanding my knowledge?

These thoughts were Thursday night. Now it's Saturday and I have spent the day stretching my horizons and expanding my knowledge. I'm learning after all, and now my blogging break is over and I must return to the books.