There is this university-level committee I am on, and every meeting is a trip to the Twilight Zone because the meetings are where I get to meet Bizarro Xykademiqz—someone who superficially seems like they would be similar to me, but are actually the exact opposite. Seriously now, there’s a person (a woman, in case it matters) on this committee with whom I disagree 100% on everything. It’s so weird. There hasn’t been a single thing we’ve seen eye-to-eye on. Not one! We are both opinionated people, which is why this issue comes up, but it’s still a little shocking. The other folks are spread out in between while this person and I hold two opposing views. It’s very strange for both of us to be in academia (granted, in very, VERY different disciplines) yet have virtually nothing in common, at least when it comes to viewing the work of this particular committee. (I might also be having tiny panic attacks at the thought of having to interact with this person outside of the committee.)
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This year, I’ve started advising undergrads in an interdisciplinary program. Recently, a student came to me with a course plan that is so unbelievably packed and so high-level, that I was shocked and was a bit at a loss as to what to advise.ย I didn’t want to tell the student outright that their load was too great, because some people are quite capable and the student does have a 4.0 GPA so far. What surprised me was the fact that they are dead-set on getting into graduate school, which is fine, but they don’t really know what subfield they are interested in and aren’t even trying to figure out what they want. They just seem to want to somehow tunnel through undergrad courses and get to graduate courses as quickly as possible (the course plan is chock full of graduate courses), but it’s not because they are interested in the topics. Rather, it’s as if they’re being chased by demons (read: likely parental expectations, internalized or not) and the only way to escape the demons is by enrolling in upper-level grad courses as soon as possible and take as many of them as possible. I told the student that maybe they should take a breath and enjoy their undergraduate experience, focus on making friends, maybe take some more courses for breadth, but the student seemed laser-focused on this breakneck pace that will have them complete grad-level coursework before they earn their bachelor’s degree. I did tell them that, too. I honestly didn’t know why they wanted my advice. I don’t know this student well, and maybe they’re a savant so this workload is nothing for them, but again it doesn’t seem like it. They appear to be moving fast for moving fast sakes and aren’t driven by curiosity or specific interest. Several times, they asked if they could skip this course to get to that course; I asked why, but they never had an explanation. It felt like curricular whack-a-mole, with the student focused on getting to hit all these high-level courses, without giving themselves the time to process the material. If I’d known the kid better, I would’ve been more insistent that they stop and smell the flowers or, if not flowers, then perhaps beer and sweat at some campus party. There’s such a thing as taking your undergraduate studies a little too seriously.
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ย How’s the spring semester going for you, blogosphere?ย
xykademiqz 