learning to learn
| It's been just a little over a year ago that I graduated college. As difficult as it was, I successfully crammed four years of schooling into five (and a half). I know that's hard to believe. In 2002 I left BCF as a second semester senior, only to transfer and take a huge hit, losing around 70 hours of classes! Honestly, I really wasn't sure that I could recover and actually finish school. I would, for the second time around, be a first semester junior. Although then, that situation caused me much gnashing of the teeth, looking back, it probably turned out to be one of the greatest assets of my life. It was in this second college experience that college really made sense to me. I finally began to learn and think and not just remember information for later regurgitation. For the first time I was seriously challenged, both spiritually and academically and I realized that I could no longer get away with doing as little work as possible, nor did I want to. That enlightenment brought about 4 semesters of school that fostered in me a deep love and desire to study that I had never experienced before. Many of the classes in my major were arranged more like Masters level courses, where we read books, wrote papers and discussed important issues. I don't remember one day of class that I didn't have, not only the required reading completed, but usually extra background information, too. Go ahead, call me wierd, geek, nerd. I can take it. Somehow, I never developed a love for test taking, but as far as studying and writing, I was hooked. Now, as I stand on the other side of college, I miss it. I'm not at the position yet where I can go back to school, and there's not really any outlet for me to teach anywhere. So, in the meantime, I just lug around my Church history and theology books, and receive strange stares from many. Oh well, if finishing college in such an untimely matter doesn't embarass me, I guess that shouldn't either. |
posted by Christie