I'm always up for a challenge.
And the return to academia has done just that. It's not that I'm disinterested, or unable to complete work, or plagued by any of the factors that so frequently overwhelm Undergraduate Seniors and those who return from professional settings. No, the pace and structure of the experience is not only manageable; it's rather easy.
But there's no day to day excitement, no push for information and resolution by 5pm close. I start off my days knowing exactly what is going to happen, and I loathe that feeling. It was such an engaging challenge to show up to work each morning and jump on board with each hour's hot new development. And my current state of relatively drab coursework and classroom experience is subverting all energy and excitement that I would have otherwise held.
Yet, I am lucky. I have substantive outlets for my engagement. A good friend once told me that whereas many students go to institutions to be challenged intellectually, Valpo's utter lack of response to my attempts for scholastic engagement has forced me to seek intellectual stimulus by effectively managing inordinately complex time schedules and interpersonal networks, both interior and exterior to university life. This year, I can challenge myself with the dynamics of the Student Senate, about how to combat a popular apathy that I too confess to exhibit, about how to engage and empower students towards targeted advocacy for issues that they own. At Valpo's Advancement office, I can draw themes out of alumni feedback sessions to shape university and alumni branding, and analyze giving statistics to target development work. I can keep writing for publishers. I can keep applying for jobs. I can keep blogging and reading and leading groups that (unfortunately) have little if anything to do with my university experience. These are things about which I am excited. And they are not coursework.
Call it senioritis, if you like. But I don't think this label is very apt. This is not mere boredom with scholastic content. No, this experience is symptomatic of an academic culture which promotes rote, task-based learning rather than engaged, critical inquiry. That's why I'm approaching my third independent study project in as many years. And while Mark Twain may remind us that we should "never let school get in the way of [our] education," isn't it odd that business students, who claim to harbor entrepreneurial zeal and love organizational dynamics, are flaccid in their energies for business education?
Maybe that's what this is all about.
Could it be a sort of simplistic reverse psychology? Do schools make their business students loathe their coursework in order to prompt students to go out and do exactly that which the school is attempting to train them to do? It might work. But it definitely comes at a cost, and it seems... utterly absurd.
And so it goes. I need a new challenge to engage myself. Now I have the challenge of finding substantive employment for the spring. And for the time being, the thrill of this hunt will enliven the vapid monotony of academic programs that, in title and face, appear to have such remarkable potential.
