System Overload

The midterm offered its frustrations and painstaking studying for some people but for myself I noticed that I could use more preparation and internalizing of the material. Finding relations between the respective artistic and cultural qualities of each of the places we learned of was not all that complicated rather remembering the factual aspects that threw me off. The danger in this kind of writing or test-taking is that you find yourself basing each culture off of your own interpretation and not how it would have been viewed in their societies. Granted the end result can prove to be okay, but that in itself is not true comprehension of the culture. What kind of steps does it take to improve this knowledge? I believe at some level it takes a personal responsibility to ask questions in class and research some on your own to get those deeper comparisons within the cultures. The nature of the course itself does not really set us up for this rather, and by no means is this a professor’s fault, it sets us up for surface level fact based information and both the students and professors are overwhelmed by the shallow end before they even take a dive in the deep. The solution I believe is an overhaul of the entire class structure but this can be saved for another blog for now I will resolve to furthering my knowledge as much as I can in the current system!!

Worrying Wisdom

Interestingly aggravating - that’s what I would have to say was the total experience of this past weeks midterm preparation. By no means do I mean the test was ridiculously hard but rather the lack of confidence or need to worry I saw in many of my classmates made me frustrated. Having talked with many of the people in our class and having known many of them my entire life, I know that they are capable enough to do well on a test, yet they worry. If there is one thing I can say to the nature of education is that all too often either by outside pressure or by class structure, schooling has become a vacuum sucking the confidence out of student by use of overload. Methods by teachers and personal expectations create disarray around any test time for any class that drives me insane. The constant asking of questions that were based off of pure anxiety, in the moments before the test was aggravating. Regardless of the make up of the test the materials have been set before each and every one of us and we just have to go out and perform and deal with the results when they get here. This concept of predicting and expecting certain results before an action is an overwhelmingly aggravating ideal in American culture and is way different from the cultures we have learned of so far in Humanities. We seem to want accolades before accomplishment or a curve before we commence. The reality is, at least for me, that whatever the result is I can always do better, if I take this approach to a test I don’t worry. Moreover, if any worry should be placed on my life it is that I become anxious when I am not improving in all aspects of education. I am never going to achieve perfection and am in constant need of getting better at everything. Perhaps I was blessed with excellent teachers that have instilled in me this mentality or life situations are producing in me wisdom but regardless I still say, as my heritage would, “Que sera sera”. Whatever will be will be…