Every semester, deadlines get tighter, assignments demand more, my ability to allocate attention to each module wilts a little.

Was whining about how stretched I feel to Justin, and although at the time I was too vexed to register what he kept saying, one thing he reiterated stood out: That I’m learning and I should be happy about that.

It’s embarrassing, but I lose track of that goal so often, when it should be intuitive and obvious.

I’m here to learn. Whatever my grades are ultimately, I get my degree. Yes, getting a better grade can nudge my starting salary margin up by a couple hundred. But really, in the large scheme of things, so what?

The first time I’ve felt significant academic stimulation was in JC, when I did my first AQ for GP. I loved responding to a prescribed text or topic in a critical manner, without a formal anchor. I remember going, so this is what thinking is. I loved it. JC, although frankly quite challenging, didn’t offer much space for freer discourse though.

In that gap between graduating and matriculation – probably the longest I’ve gone without school, I started to crave critical thinking. I hoarded information off the net and read endlessly on subjects I never bothered with before.

But I was used to being spoon-fed, with at least a rough framework to work with, and although valiant my efforts were haphazard and yielded little. At the time I was incredibly excited for Uni, where I would be made to start thinking and knowing again.

Sem 1 was a dazzle of intellectual frenzy and I loved every moment of it. Political science intro with all it’s fancy new theories, psychology which i’ve wanted to do for years, my comfort zone in literature where everything is always fun and never goes wrong… and then there was my first usp module which near well sent me into the throes of self-doubt, but was also the module I loved the most.

It was writing and critical thinking on justice and was basically just this intense philosophical module around issues of law and justice in all it’s abstraction and theoretical aspects. It might not seem like much two mods more into uni but right then it was just about the most challenging academic course i’ve had, and i loved every single brain-wringing moment of it.

I felt like I was really, really engaging with whatever I was learning. I felt like I needed to push myself to understand things, to produce any thing. It was just brilliant and right now what I define real education to be. 

To be fair, all the modules in my subsequent semesters provide me with the opportunity to feel that as well, especially my USP mods. But at the same time there are additional expectations for more technical aspects of academic work, like formal research and structure. That kinda bogs down my whole enthusiastic freedom learner thing.

Still.

I guess, yes, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to learn. And I wish so much to always remember how that is my main objective. As long as I’m applying myself to engage with my material, grades shouldn’t really bother me. The Asian pride in me does want to do well just for the heck of though.

My mid-semester crisis where I started to doubt my major choice of psych kind of stemmed from its lack of academic freedom/rigor it expected from me, actually. I really love free, unseen critical response. That I need to deal with (and memorize, horror!) facts and figures and have ‘right’ answers kind of turn me off the module.

I wanted to Psychology because, to me, it’s the most encompassing of all fields (or so I thought). It’s essentially learning about why and how humans work – our behavior, our thought, everything. But now I’m not so sure. Everything is so formulaic, and although yes I can handle it all but it just doesn’t excite me as much as critiquing does.

Starting to suspect that I’m not as much of a social scientist as I thought……. 0-:

At the same time, the facts and figures are fascinating. They form the knowledge bulk of academia. My theory is that there are two main facets of learning – knowledge hoarding and critical thinking. I guess we all need both for wholesome learning, but GOD memorizing is so tedious.

Ngh!!! Mid-sem crisis again.