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Academic Potluck
As my last week of classes starts to wind down (only one left, tomorrow at
10 AM), I wanted to reflect a little more on the education system here.
In general, I feel relatively disappointed, but this comes on more of a
personal level than on an academic one.
Personally, I felt generally unchallenged and like I was going through the
motions of an education rather than experiencing one. Many of the courses
here and 2 of mine basically consist of copying down notes from overheads
or lecturers, to be later regurgitated for the exam. The grading system
is on a scale of 1 to 20 and you don't typically get much feedback as to
why you received the grade you did. Just yesterday I went to pick up my
second paper for my History course; the professor told me that I'd gotten
a 19 and that it was very good, but that she is reluctant to give out a
20, implying that this is because of the way the system works and how she
would be viewed by her colleagues for giving out such a high mark. I'd
never had a professor so blatantly admit that I was denied a grade that I
might have earned because of the standards in the system. How annoying.
Academically, it felt like a potluck, where the quality of the course is
determined mostly by pure chance. I had one course, Environmental Ethics,
that was absolutely fabulous and engaging, one of my best courses ever,
but it feels like I got it by pure chance. Monday and Tuesday in History
class we had a lecturer we'd never had before, and he presented a very
engaging look at two Scottish painters in the 19th and 20th centuries, and
generally at Scottish art history. This was wonderful, but quite a
contrast to the rest of the course that consisted mostly of poorly
presented (though sometimes interesting) facts and chronologies; many of
my classmates had given up on attending the class logn ago, and missed out
on these 2 great lectures.
Another perspective might be that I'm just not used to it. Even if my 50
minute lectures were disappointing, the lack of homework and specific
reading assignments left open hours and hours of free time for me to
create my own education in the library, and through independent study one
could probably gain just as much, if not more, knowledge about any given
academic area than at Earlham College or another U.S. institution. But I
guess I don't feel like any amount of that could replace the atmosphere
I've found at Earlham and the personal challenges (with academic ties)
created for me there. I value having experienced the Scottish education
system, at least a cross-section of it, and I guess technically I could
consider this program as a part of my "Earlham Education."
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