Wednesday, March 15, 2006

THE DANGERS OF ARRIVING TO CLASS EARLY


in every class there are several types of students. there are those who tolerate the pressures of note-taking best unconscious, and those who prefer to do their learning in bed. there are those who, under the misguided impression that classes of over 200 students are meant to be interactive, sit in the front row and try to outsmart the professor. and there are those who arrive to class early.


we have all seen them, skulking outside classroom doors or hunched over desks in empty lecture halls. they are the ones who arrive forty minutes before the prof for exams, proclaim in loud voices that they know nothing, then proceed to repeat entire pages of the textbook almost verbatim.


last week, due to circumstances beyond my control, I happened to arrive at class early. it was a mistake I will never repeat. by the time class started, if there was any had been any doubt in my mind that my life and future were doomed to failure, it had been extinguished. psychology specialists at u of t, I learned, should complete their program in five years, not four, for any hope of being accepted to grad school. especially with the marks u of t gives. and research! if you haven't worked in a lab by third year and been published by fourth, you might as well start picking out colours for your cardboard box, because grad schools won't even consider you. and you have to go to grad school; what else can you do with a bachelor's degree in psychology?


so now the pressure is off. I know I will fail no matter what I do, and I am greatly relieved.

1 comment:

Katie said...

i suppose it's a bloody good thing you're going to med school, then.