Compos Mentis

Finals

I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of the final. I can put in some stuff about how Colleges try to stuff the biggest point gain at the very point where college students are the most sleep deprived. I could mention that one test should not be the main criteria as to how much you know about any given subject. I could make the argument that, in my case, discussions with you guys and my fellow honors students here teach me more than any class (or even all of my books) ever will. But it doesn't matter. I'm in the middle of them. And, being me, it affords a great chance to note the psychology of students under stress. That's the other thing that teaches me more than school has: just observing other people.
I must admit to having made a mistake on my very first post. I assumed then that, after the initiation which bonded the students together, the University would attempt to gain their allegiance. I was only partially correct. I think they realize that students, at least the majority of students, are not going to enjoy going to classes, and keep the separation that I outlined in that post. The students here are all universally basketball fans- and that's what creates the unity, even while I hear great complaints, similar to my own, on finals and their inopportune timing.
The library is a great museum of the human condition. This Sunday, the day before test week starts, the place was packed. Their possible motives threatened to escape me. These are the same people who spend their Friday and Saturday nights altering the chemical structures in their brain in what can only be interpreted as an attempt to forget something. Now, they study. More abstractly, what is the goal that they are shooting for? I understand my own motive: I take the clearer but perhaps more dangerous road of wishing knowledge for it's own sake, to some extent for my own improvement. Many of the Sunday library dwellers wish only to keep from failing- from getting a mark on a piece of paper. They spend all of their time living in the physical world and its pleasures, and they fear an academic mark: an idea. Einstein is the prime example of a person who overcomes his grades, but I submit that the people in the library are right to fear, and that the usual view of Einstein is wrong.
Ideas and concepts have strong influences in the physical world. Marks on paper have even more so. Grades drive people to fear: either fear for themselves or fear of the person who manages to get an A in Hon Critical Thinking. Fear, of course, is probably the most motivating emotion in the human repertoire. And while Einstein probably did not fear the repercussions of the failing grades he got, his anger (and how close is anger to fear?) at them probably stimulated him to greater heights then he might otherwise have been open to.
This is very rambling. Don't worry, guys, I only have one more final, and then I'll be back for a month, which I hope will be time enough to get me back to my regular kind of insanity instead of this one, which isn't very fun.

posted by Emmett @ 11:20