Students fight battle between life, drudgery
Stephen Dick
Guest Column
It starts with the annoying pulse of my alarm clock. It's there on the mornings that I step into the frigid air when, just minutes before, I was wrapped in the warmth of my bed. I feel it as I trudge off heavily to an 8:30 a.m. class, with that almost embarrassed feeling of being up so early, to learn. I see it in my fellow class-goers from the groggy looks on their faces, which all but scream for more sleep (a rare commodity here). It seems to possess everyone around me; the aura of the room is death. It's there every early morning of classes and it's there every late night of studying; it is the drudgery of campus academic life.
On those surreal weekday mornings and those late late-night cram sessions, I inwardly marvel at the driving force that got me out of bed so early and tucked me into bed so late. After some pondering, I was soon able to narrow the possible forces down to a single suspect. This adversary, while influential, is the silent and intangible type. This driving force, this source of drudgery, is nothing more than grades.
For me, it is another late night and I am taking a study break or, as I so fondly refer to it, a "sanity break." I am in the process of cramming two weeks, three chapters and 100 pages of psychology for a test I am to take later on this very day. And no matter how I slice it, a feat of this magnitude has "all-nighter" written all over it. The drudgery continues and the influence of grades has claimed another victim (me).
On his first day of class, our psych professor underestimated education's greatest adversary and overestimated his grade-oriented students when he stated that we students should "study for knowledge, not grades." My first impression of this tired idea was undoubtedly the same as my classmates: easily said. You don't have to put up with my parents.
But as I was just plugging through my reading and the clock neared 3 a.m., I began to understand the relevance of his words.
The truth came to light as I was just learning about existentialism, an idea that claims "we are free to alter our course of action at any time."
It goes on to state that people often sacrifice their freedom in order to avoid the responsibility of free choice and the concerns that accompany such responsibility. People actually deceive themselves into believing their actions are determined in order to escape the anxiety of freedom. After reading this, I simply stopped and closed my book. I stopped reading and instead of thinking about how this information was going to be tested, I simply applied the text to my current situation.
And it finally hit me. This test is about 1/10 of my psychology grade, which is 1/5 of all my first semester grades, which is 1/8 of my total grades here at Notre Dame. Even my total grades only possess a small fraction of meaning in the grand scheme of "me." I did the math and came up with a single certainty: grades do not matter. Learning and studying is fine. What is not fine, however, is the drudgery of learning and studying.
Notre Dame is full of zealous students who will fight tooth and nail to receive the better grade. Put the best, brightest and hardest-working in the same classes to compete for the same prize and the overzealous will go to even greater lengths. They will live, eat and breathe drudge, if only for the day before a test, in order to outweigh another classmate on a scale that is imbalanced. At times, we all do things when our hearts are not in them; I see it every day. However, the choice to do or not do something truly exists.
The choices we make today must be made for today, and not for the sake of a happier future that is perpetually a day away. As tempting as it is to drudge today in order to provide for tomorrow, be it for a good test grade in the short run or a secure job in the long run, we must avoid such temptations based on the fact that today could be the day for which we have no tomorrow.
Engaging in drudgery is a decision that I see people here, including myself, making all the time. By all means, read, learn and improve your psyche, but do not drudge. Do only what you truly want to do; it is your choice to make. By drudging we will all lose touch with what we really feel in exchange for some letters closer to the top of the alphabet.
That is a frightening reality.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have some sleep to catch up on.
Stephen Dick is a guest columnist for The Observer. He is a freshman from Keenan Hall and can be contacted at sdick@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, December 5, 2001
