Thoughts on my education
So after spending yet another Monday night in a classroom in Tucson, I've come to the realization that I HATE ... hate hate hate ... pure lecture classes. Seriously I feel like I'm wasting my time driving a total of 4 hours every Monday if all I'm gonna do is sit in a classroom for 2-1/2 hours while someone stands at the front of the room and yaps. Seriously, send me the notes and let me read by myself. It would save a lot of gas and time.
My Wednesday night is much the same. The professor is very condescending, generally teaching at an undergraduate level, going back over basic journalism stuff we all learned years ago and getting stuff just flat wrong (e.g., the convenient redefining of the concept of 'antinomial' ethics to fit [poorly] an equally convenient either-or comparison she was trying to make). But for almost three hours every Wednesday, she talks at us and asks leading questions that she has to answer herself because no one feels moved to speak, much less discuss, the topic. Everything is painted in very broad strokes with very basic colors. It's mind-numbing.
On Tuesday, though, it's all different, and it makes up for the other two nights with room to spare. This man is the professor (old article and he has a beard now, but that's him). Although I have to read an insane amount of stuff for this class, it's all thought-provoking, raising countless journalistic issues about which there are no easy answers, and about which there are always several ethical issues in conflict with one another. In class it's more like a conversation among smart and intellectually curious people than a lecture. There's even been one after-class cocktails session, and there's soon to be another.
This last class is by far the most rigorous and difficult of the three, but it's by far the most rewarding and (dare I say it?) fun, and I always leave the class with a little spring in my step, feeling like I accomplished something, learned something, resolved something.
Maybe I'm just a geek.
My Wednesday night is much the same. The professor is very condescending, generally teaching at an undergraduate level, going back over basic journalism stuff we all learned years ago and getting stuff just flat wrong (e.g., the convenient redefining of the concept of 'antinomial' ethics to fit [poorly] an equally convenient either-or comparison she was trying to make). But for almost three hours every Wednesday, she talks at us and asks leading questions that she has to answer herself because no one feels moved to speak, much less discuss, the topic. Everything is painted in very broad strokes with very basic colors. It's mind-numbing.
On Tuesday, though, it's all different, and it makes up for the other two nights with room to spare. This man is the professor (old article and he has a beard now, but that's him). Although I have to read an insane amount of stuff for this class, it's all thought-provoking, raising countless journalistic issues about which there are no easy answers, and about which there are always several ethical issues in conflict with one another. In class it's more like a conversation among smart and intellectually curious people than a lecture. There's even been one after-class cocktails session, and there's soon to be another.
This last class is by far the most rigorous and difficult of the three, but it's by far the most rewarding and (dare I say it?) fun, and I always leave the class with a little spring in my step, feeling like I accomplished something, learned something, resolved something.
Maybe I'm just a geek.
posted by Chris | 9:13 AM
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