It is not without a certain amount of trepidation that I look ahead to the beginning of school. Living in a college town that is also a capitol city allows me to see and interact with a constantly shifting group of people (and drivers). I find that I would rather deal with the damn politicians.
I have been in an educational system for 30 years now, starting with montessori when I was 3. In that time I have learned to accept that I will be in an educational system for the rest of my life. Academia is a good place to be and I find that my own version of stability in life is quite happily met there. I am constantly surrounded by thinking people who are also doing what they love to do. It is a heady mix and one that I am loathe to be without.
Having said that: I detest college students. I hate them with a passion that is usually reserved for child molesters and batterers. It's not healthy, and I keep finding amazing peolpe on campus and in the field who totally blast my impressions of whatever class of undergrads or graduate students I may have developed. My illusions get built up, and then they come back to town. Droves of clones looking to get their degrees just to get a better job, generally not even in the field they happen to be studying, who don't pay attention in class, never get passionate about anything while they are sober and who speak of nothing but inanities outside of the classroom, and frequently in the classroom. The romantic ideal of roundtable discussion and socratic method is not an ideal, it is a reality in many worlds and many schools and many classrooms. It is wonderful to be a part of a group of people who are actively engaged in whatever discussion is at hand, even if it devolves into a mass condmenation of any movie with colin farrell in it. It is wonderful to see and hear people's minds change, to feel my own mind change, and to be actively dynamic.
So it hurts my heart when women and men on campus walk around seeming to care more about how they look and how little work they have to do in order to just pass and get out than they do about taking advantage of the environment in which tye find themselves, and not just to further social expectations of marriage and job. I hear stories of women saying that they don't agree with feminism because women shouldn't be expected to think for themselves. I see athletes lugging their beaten bodies around with students who are paid to do their homework and make sure that it gets turned in on time. Leaving class is a parade of flipping cell phones and declarations that class is boring and all anyone can wait to do is get to the bar or the movies or the pool or the tanning booth. Even the nerds are getting in on this! At the coffee house downtown, the only people who actually study are the ones who have a test tomorrow or graduate students.
And don't even get me started on the bar scene. I go to bars where the student population is very very low. I'm older than they are, I can get away with it.
My complaints are not new. People have been lambasting the younger generation for eons. It is not the younger generation that I have such problems with: it is the generations of people who are running around not thinking for themselves and not being actively involved in their own lives. These students are frustrating, not just because I don't understand their need to hypersexualize themselves, but also because they don't seem to have a concept of personal responsiblity. They have parents who will call the departmental offices if their child has a simple question. The number of parents who call for their children has grown depressingly in the last four years. I have done some data collection on this, as I used to work in an academic office, and I've asked people what their impressions are. The number of professors who are being relegated to the role of comedian or entertainer without being able to feel like they have imparted anything of substance is getting ridiculous to me.
There is a counter to all of this, of course. Professors and students who see this problem of mediocrity and are responding, as they always have, with an increased level of creativity and activity. Classes on the literature of science, independent reading courses that grow out of discussions in class because there are so many people interested that there just isn't enough time without it, research oppurtunities that involve undergrads in the work of their professors and in the application of the all of the memorized info and theories, the list goes on. I only hope to be a positive addition to that world, instead of feeling like every time I walk onto campus I am going to be assaulted by waves of apathy and hair product.
On a lighter note, I think I'm going to have go into geography. I'll start with History and then go to Archaeology, but I suspect that my research, which is becoming more and more urban oriented, will, in fact, lead me to my father's old office where I will be ensconced, quite happily, for the rest of my life.
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