I used to have a particular approach to college assignments.
Anytime I was given an assignment in class, I took it without knowing explicitly as an absolute. I used to take it the same way I take reality. In reality, a fact is a fact; and there can be no deviation from the truth. That was and is my way of approaching the world.
In the context of college I turned it into "An assignment is given. Completing this assignment is now for me like a facing a fact. I must respond to 'this fact' in a timely manner. The same way I would respond to gravity by placing my foot forward every time I make a step."
Of course, an assignment isn't a fact of reality. It's not a physical or moral law. It's an assignment and nothing more. However, I took it as something it is not because that's how I preferred to deal with things in my life - as facts of reality that have a reason and logic behind it. That means that reality makes sense; it's rational; so I should act appropriately.
Through my personal expectation of what college ought to be I took it to mean that college is rational as well. And thus it became self-evident for me to approach it in the same way.
In the beginning of my college education I took assignments as things that come from the facts of reality. In this context, it means that the existence of man has requirements. Thus, in order to live, I need to learn those requirements. Since I have chosen my way of honest earning of my existence through Computer Science, I had to learn it through rational means. So, it would make sense that the education should be rational as well, since that’s the only way to learn the material and the only way to teach it. Thus, by accepting assignments as ‘facts,’ I was accepting the actual fact of existence of myself.
However, college education I entered was not rational.
This led to some interesting collisions that were a result of this contradiction. From one hand, I was expecting and acting as if the education was rational, since it had to be applied to the world that exists. And from another, the education was not rational. It did not, in fact, teach the material or skills I needed to be in a profession of Computer Science.
While facing such contradiction I had continued to stay with my idea of living – of relying on my own judgment as I had done in every moment of my profession of computer programming. As I looked at my classes I saw them as being boring and useless to my goal, thus it led me to lose focus on them just as I lose focus on boring things. Thus, I began to be sometimes late on deadlines of assignment and tests.
However, I had not yet realized the full picture. It turned out that to me missing the deadline of an assignment still felt like failing to face a fact of reality. While not always clear, it almost always felt dimly negative. I did not feel guilt – the assignment was not a contract I signed with anybody but myself. Instead, it was a feeling of potential self-doubt. However, self-doubt could not enter my mind either. So, instead, something else remained suspended between me and college life. I could not find myself to find college practical to this world, and yet I could not accept any loss of self-esteem by seeing my lack of full focus on college.
This problem didn’t exist for long. I had quickly resolved that the problem is in the college and not me. That was obvious.
But until recently, I had not seen the full meaning of my realization.
While I concluded that college is impractical for my programming career, I did not apply this idea fully. I had still viewed college assignments as something that belonged to reason. I still saw college as it ought to be – an educational system that teaches one how to live and work, and so I had proceeded to accept college assignments as something I had to complete correctly and on time. And when I failed to do so, even by a minute, I felt like I had failed at something.
I no longer feel so.
A ‘failure’ presupposes a goal and the means to accomplish it. If a goal and the means are separated or don’t exist at all, then no ‘failure’ can occur. I used to accept that a college assignment has a goal of teaching me new knowledge that I can later use in my career, and thus completing the assignment correctly and on time is the rational means of achieving such a goal.
However, this isn’t true in my college (and most colleges as well). The goal that most colleges have is not to prepare the students for their career. The college degrees and programs are developed in such a way that it teaches student how to be a ‘proper’ ‘cultural’ citizen and only afterwards be the professional in the chosen field.
That was not and is not my goal in regards to education. I had joined college to learn how to be a programmer not to learn the details about “Social Problems.”
Since it’s clear now that the goal of the college is incompatible with mine, its means are completely wrong.
Instead, the college now turns into something different. It turns into what it is right now – an institution of giving out degrees without correct rational meaning I was expecting. Thus, the only goal that keeps me there is the goal of acquiring a degree by complying with its requirements.
Now, my goal with college is different but I knew it long before. But it’s the first time when it is crystal clear to me now. I’m there to get a degree. The only ‘failure’ I ought to accept is a failure of getting a degree.
