My Biggest Academic Downfall
I suck at multiple choice tests. I don’t know why. I always have. I always will.
I loved Astro 001 last spring, I knew the material, I had genuine interest in it, I studied, but every test was terrible. The same went for Linguistics last semester. The same was for pretty much every class that gave only multiple-choice tests. It’s enormously frustrating to be one of the 50 (out of 200) people who constantly show up for class, take notes, ask questions, do the reading, etc. just to get a test back and find out that I’m flat in the middle of the bell-curve. It’s the great equalizer.
Where’s my credit for effort and perseverance? Where’s my credit for dealing with bad groups, the kind that half of them leave during the first week, or the kind that never communicate or offer to do any work? How about all the nights I stayed up ’til past dawn doing work for a project that people show up 45 minutes late to class the next day and “browse over” what we should’ve presented during the real deadline?
How about credit for enrichment? Every club I’ve been in, every person I’ve tried to help out. Ambition to take myself further than others want to? Entrepreneurialism? Learning when I don’t have to? Doing a lot more than the average run-of-the-mill Penn Stater?
I’ve gotten a nomination here and there in my life, or some recognition, but when it boils down to it, when it comes down to getting jobs, moving into the real world, I’m still going to have to sit there and explain that I don’t have a 4.0 because I can’t do testing like normal people. The second that leaves my mouth, all my credibility, all my achievements, all of my efforts, they’re all diminished. And at the same time, the people who skip their classes, the ones who go get trashed every Thursday, the ones who give nothing back to their communities, the ones who show half-assed projects assembled poorly only for a grade, they’re out there, and they’re getting offers from big-time companies, because they’re good at filling in those little bubbles.
It’s all numbers, and it’s choking me to death.
I’m out of stuff to yell about.