Believe it or not, I'm actually typing this column while sitting in the back of one of my classes. I won't tell you which class, because that could threaten my participation grade, which I sorely need. This will be our little secret.
Right now I am sketchily hunched over my laptop, peering around to make sure my fellow classmates don't realize what's going on. I fear that they, along with the professor, will discover that I am not actually a digital hipster student of the 21st century taking notes on the computer, but rather someone who just doesn't want to pay attention during her last lecture class before Spring Break.
As I defensively glance around the room, I realize that I am not alone in pulling off this brilliant ruse. Even the students without laptops are either doodling in their notebooks or awkwardly flipping through a copy of The Chronicle balanced between their knees and the desk.
And it occurred to me: Why are we here?
Why are our parents paying $45,000 so we can do the Sudoku while a high-strung Ph.D. student talks at us for 75 minutes?
Because the fact is, we just aren't listening anymore. So many of us Dukies spend the first weeks of each semester precisely calculating the minimum work that can be put into a class to get the maximum grade. We figure out which readings we can skip, whether we have to study for weekly quizzes and whether we even have to attend the class.
We have gotten just plain lazy.
After four long years of high school, we are finally at an institution where we attend class for a maximum of about four hours a day, choose our own curriculum to include courses such as "The Hip Hop Aesthetic" and are surrounded by some of the most brilliant students and faculty in the world. But some of us can barely even scrounge up the motivation to crawl out of bed for our 10:20 a.m. class. Our only class of the day.
Granted, there are a large number of Duke students who are still very passionate about academics, but for many, classwork is just something to be trudged through on the way to the weekend. We obviously are all intelligent, motivated, intellectually curious individuals; we wouldn't be here if we weren't. So what happened?
Where has the love of learning gone?
I have a couple of crackpot theories about the academic apathy that afflicts so many college students:
1) Burnout Theory
This theory mostly applies to freshmen. After four long years of academic competition, grubbing for extracurriculars and anxiously poring over the U.S. News and World Report rankings, they finally got into the college of their dreams. And now they just want to relax for once. Why overload on courses when they just got here, and when major declarations and the real world seem so far away? Hell, why even go to class at all? They're tired, man.
2) Ring of Gyges Theory
The Ring of Gyges is a legend told by Plato in The Republic about a man who finds a ring that can make him invisible (I guess Tolkien wasn't so original after all). As a result, he goes on a spree of theft, adultery and even murder. The same applies in college, though hopefully to a lesser extent.
In high school, there were major repercussions for missing class. There were phone calls home, detentions and the obviousness of being gone from a much smaller class. At Duke, however, Mommy and Daddy have no idea that you always skip your Friday morning class because you are too hungover from the night before. Hardly any teacher cares enough to inquire about your absence. In a lecture of 200 students, you might as well be wearing the Ring of Gyges, you are that invisible.
Less accountability for your actions in college unfortunately contributes to some less honorable behavior, with skipping class being the least of it. It's just too easy.
3) Separation of Work and Home Theory
In high school, school and home existed in two separate spheres. You got up and went to school all day, and then came home where you could relax and hang out once homework was done. In college, academics, friends, extracurriculars and jobs all come together in an amorphous blob of life. Here we are forced to prioritize, because time and geography no longer separate our lives into neat, distinct categories. And all too often, classwork falls behind in importance to more pressing things, like chatting on AIM for two hours, or playing frisbee on the quad. Class tends to take a backseat to life.
So what is to be done to shock us out of our academic laziness? The first step is awareness. Realize that you only get as much out of your time here as you put into it. And remember a time, way back when, when it was still exciting and enjoyable to learn new things.
So, dear readers, if you happen to be reading this in class right now, put it down and pay attention!
Stacy Chudwin is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Friday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.