After our discussion about stress
last week, I’ve spent some additional time reflecting on what stresses me out.
I feel stressed out most of the time, but I rarely try to identify the source
of my stress or do anything to fix it. Writing on this topic in my notebook, I
began by bringing up the most obvious things, such as schoolwork and the
pressure of getting good grades. As I continued to write, however, I realized
there were other things that I was unaware of that were also contributing to my
stress.
At Uni, I believe there’s a big
culture of “faking it ‘til you make it”. Essentially, the main focus is to manage
to pass exams and major assignments (ultimately getting a good overall grade in
the class) rather than putting the main focus on learning the material. For
example, memorizing how to do a problem that is bound to be on an exam without
truly understanding the concept. This system seems to work perfectly,
especially for busy Uni students with crazy schedules, because there’s not
always time to thoroughly comprehend all the material we learn in class.
However, I think this can be taken too far, and that’s where I found myself
getting stressed out. Faking it might work fine now, but when my knowledge is
truly put to the test, I am not confident that I could say that my grades could
accurately reflect my ability. Again, there aren’t as many consequences now, so
it doesn’t seem like much of a problem, but when I think further into the
future, I’m afraid that this habit will bleed into my higher-level studies.
Additionally, most people say they
don’t use a lot of the things they learned in high school later in life, but I
personally would find it pretty disappointing if I find that I spent these past
five years learning absolutely nothing. It’s impossible to retain all the
information, but at the same time, I don’t want to find out that I was merely a
machine that churned out calculated answers to specific questions that I know
will appear on exams throughout my whole high school life. When I enter the
workforce, I will have to be able to apply my knowledge to real-world
situations. If I continue on this path of doing the minimum amount of work in
order to do “well” based on a completely arbitrary scale, I think it’ll make it
a lot harder for me in the future. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the case
for every class I take. There are classes that I genuinely enjoy and want to
learn material in, but when push comes to shove, I think it’s much easier to
put grades at a higher priority than the actual learning.
I, along with many other Uni
students, have found a system that works pretty well in high school. The stakes
aren’t too high for faking it now, because the biggest assessments that can
take place in our current lives as high school students, are exams. As we grow
older, the stakes will get higher. Our knowledge and our abilities will be put
the test by fellow high-achieving peers, future co-workers and bosses, and our
execution of various tasks that will come along with our careers. This reality
is what I found to be one of the underlying sources of my stress.
-Minji
Your point about Uni's "fake it till you make it" climate is something that I see constantly and do myself. It is like failure is not an option at Uni, and admitting you are struggling is very hard for us to do. We are all very high achieving students and we all want to do well, making sure that you are either on top or look like you are on top. I think that this is something that needs to be addressed and admitting you are struggling and asking for help is a skill all Uni students need to have. We tend to push ourselves to the limit.
ReplyDeleteI also found myself talking about the "fake it till you make it" idea when identifying my sources of stress. While I think this culture needs to change because it is beneficial to no one and only causes damage in the long run, I also have to admit that this is something I do when I get burdened with a heavy workload. I think this is part of the appeal of having a pass/fail class because it allows students to enjoy the class more and spend more time understanding the topic and creating more creative solutions without having to worry about possible ramifications for thinking outside of the box and taking risks.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I try not to, I often end up ultimately conforming to Uni's "fake it till you make it" culture. When I have lots of major assignments due around the same time and they are all stressing me out, I tend to only put forth 75% effort into some assignments instead of 100%, which still gets me the grade that I want but doesn't give me the same benefits as if I put all of my effort into it. While this works for me now, I too am apprehensive about how I will fare as I pursue higher education.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel this too! I also think it's "fake it 'till you make it" but you also have to appear effortless while doing this and balancing like 20 other things in your life. Like at Uni it's not "cool" to struggle with your life. Often it seems like everyone else has their life well put together so you have to look like that too. I think's its not just a problem at Uni but also amongst most high schoolers.
ReplyDelete- Anna Ondrejckova
People have also told me that they don't use most of the things they learned in high school later in life, which used to confuse me. I wondered why I had to learn about various scientific concepts and mathematical equations if I was only going to end up forgetting them and not putting them to any use. However, I think that we aren't forced to learn all of these concepts because educators think we need to know all of these facts. Rather, in the process of learning these things, we develop the critical thinking and processing skills that will be necessary to achieve success in any field we might choose to pursue.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kristine that while we may not end up using a lot of what we learn in high school we still gain essential skills. Yet "faking it 'til you make it" in high school prevents us from gaining those skill because "faking it" will undermine college and life readiness. I know from first hand experience from taking weed-out classes that you really need understand the material to get good grades. It simply isn't sufficient to memorize formulas and plug and chug numbers anymore. However, I think uni students are sometimes forced to use "faking it 'til you make it" because it is time efficient and effective, which makes it super attractive to stressed out students who don't have a lot of time.
DeleteWow. I never realized how true this was. For me, this problem stems at the types of classses I'm taking. As you mentioned, some classes are more interesting than others. And on top of that, considering I have a good idea of what I want to do in life, I also guage my classes based on how useful they will be for me at the next level. Based on all that, the boringness and usefulness of my classes, I make schedules that maximize my free time. I only truly "learn" in classes I want to learn and aim to get good grades in all the others. Unfortunately, I already believe that for the most part, high school is a waste of time. Because of that, I never quite realized the fault of my ways, and even now, I doubt I will change them.
ReplyDeleteI feel like at Uni, faking it till you make it, is basically expected of the students. For me, the longer I've stayed at Uni the more I've realized the how central this concept is to the life of a Uni Student and the more I've adopted this concept as a way of life. I'm not really sure where this notion came from because one definitely should put effort in to do well.
ReplyDeleteAs people above have said, I think this insight is spot-on, and something, like you said, that just about every uni student has fallen into. People often say things like "Why do I have to learn calculus if I'm never going to use it in the 'real world'?" But I think those types of comments largely miss the point of education. Learning things that are particularly useful is definitely worthwhile, but what is equally worthwhile (and often overlooked) is learning how to learn. Presumably, after all of us are done with high school, college, etc. we won't be done learning. There will be some times in everyone's life when knowing how to learn something effectively will be important. This, I think makes Uni's "fake it till you make it" system can be especially harmful. If all we know how to do is regurgitate facts, really teaching ourselves something can be very hard. What's more, I think that in "real life," a good work ethic is worth so much more than being able to get an "A" without trying, or a 1600 SAT without studying. And again, it's something that Uni (unintentionally) puts very little value on.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of mindless memorization definitely permeates Uni's culture of learning, and it will probably end up creating many bad habits for the future. One thing that helped me partially overcome the memorization problem was taking a UIUC course. The class that I'm taking (IB 150) emphasizes "deep understanding" and "application-based learning," values that I didn't actually expect to be represented on the exams. However, while around half of each exam consisted of content that was potentially memorizable, the other half was completely new material, requiring a thoughtful application of the principles that we had been taught. While the class was harder and more stressful initially, I think that the experience will be very valuable in the big picture. Although plenty of UIUC courses have the same memorization mentality as Uni, if you know of a class that breaks from this trend, I would highly encourage you to take advantage of it. This is especially helpful for people interested in the sciences, since STEM courses at Uni are generally more geared to "faking it till you make it" than the humanities.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that this is really representative of the Uni culture. I think also a huge aspect of this culture, and what stresses me out especially, that though everyone has this "fake it 'til you make it" mindset, but some are much quicker at putting it to use than others. For example, some can memorize a math problem that you know is going to be on the test in minutes, where it can take others hours. Though everyone is just focusing on memorizing the problem for the test, the effort that this faking it takes is so different for so many people, which can lead to unhealthy attitudes about studying, where people feel that they need to be able to memorize things quickly, even if that is not their natural learning style.
ReplyDeleteNice post! Regarding "faking it till you make it" think it's great that you are aware of the elements of this culture that you see in Uni, and that you are making an effort to avoid taking part in it in the future. That's something that I really should do more of. It's easy to just coast by and earn an "easy A", but as you said, it isn't something that will benefit you in the future.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! The way you define it, I have "faked it till ive made it" in a ton of classes at Uni. The reason for this though, is because I'm usually utterly uninterested in the material so I have no interest in retaining anything or understanding what I'm doing. In classes I have enjoyed though, particularly at UIUC, I have really worked to understand ideas rather than passing exams. I guess it's all about finding what you are passionate about.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the usefulness of the variety of topics that we are learning about in school right now, I don't think it's reasonable to think that we would be actively using everything that we have learned thus far. We only tend to remember that which we use repeatedly. So based on people's interests, the things that we choose to remember will vary widely. So maybe instead of trying to retain everything, it might be useful to think of the variety of school subjects as a way to test the waters and figure out what is worth retaining.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you, and it's something that is becoming progressively more worrying to me as I approach college. Uni has exacerbated my crippling fear of failure and I know for a fact that this is going to cause me huge problems in college. I think part of it, ironically, is a certain amount of grade inflation, as well as things like reassessments and revisions that basically assure our success as long as we work hard. That probably won't be the case in college and I'm very frightened!
ReplyDeleteYour point about faking it till you make it is SOOO accurate I feel. This becomes especially clear when a few months or a year later we are asked of we remember something and we are all like what is that. It is kind of sad to think I don't learn but it kind of feels like there is no other option.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely do fake it until we make it, in terms of learning the actual material from the courses we take. It is true that we won't use a lot of this information again, unless we use it in our fields of study (although I still think it's good to learn these things, since any information like the fact that the Earth isn't flat could be useless for someone who wouldn't deal with that fact, like a musician, which is clearly not true). However, I will say that faking it through Uni has made me better at cramming, writing essays over the course of a day, and typing blog comments on my last day of school.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more with this post. People are lying if they say they don't place grades above actually learning the material. With the competitive admissions process no matter where we go, everybody is so focused on grades and getting the highest grades. This is why I think Utopias and Dystopias was such a great class. When you remove that pressure to do well and get the highest grade possible, you are more open to try new things. Great blog post.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a greatly important topic of conversation in this post. Perhaps you've heard of "duck syndrome?" In a lot of ways I think that a majority of Uni students suffer from this both knowingly and unknowingly, myself included. Everytime I think about just trying to get through a class or exam without thoroughly understanding the material I think to Mr. Butler's history class (sorry!). Using this example, I think that learning how to memorize in world history has ultimately helped me a lot, but I wish it hadn't been such an instrumental part of the class for obvious reasons. Anyhow, I really appreciate your ideas. Thank you for sharing.
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