When I have done quite well (pat myself on the back here) in school all the way since I was young, I have started to ask myself more and more what makes me so much different? Why do I not seem to have the trouble my fellow students do with academics? Why, in my first year of college, did I ace every final exam without studying more than a few hours?
It's taken me a long time to come up with an answer to this, and I think I may finally have one.
I learn.
Others run, they read, they watch sports, they shop, they act, they build. The thing that I most enjoy doing is learning. And as a result, I think I'm well suited to the current academic system, which means that I am a lucky person as far as these things go.
Very lucky. Because, if I were born in a country that didn't have the sort of educational system that mine does, I probably would have fallen prey to some wild animal by now.
Being such a good learner is not always great, first of all you get jealous, competitive classmates in high school who hate you simply for doing better than them (thank God I'm not in pre-med), and going back even further, it makes for painful times on the grade school playground. It also means that when I'm not doing something that ends up being productive (i.e. caught up playing video games for extended periods, boring conversations, lectures about things I already know) it can get extremely frustrating.
I've taken to teaching myself when there's nothing there to teach me. Thus, this summer when my language instruction ended, I took it upon myself to learn on my own time, and now that I have got thus far, I intend to continue, because it is no good to be only one-and-a-half-lingual.
I have also taken it upon myself to learn about as much history, architecture, culture, and art and such that I can while in Germany.
I never really chose to go into science much more than went where people expected me to go. However, it appears that I'm quite lucky in that this is exactly the field I should be in, and I look forward to a lifetime of learning ahead of me. Should be a hell of a ride.
It's taken me a long time to come up with an answer to this, and I think I may finally have one.
I learn.
Others run, they read, they watch sports, they shop, they act, they build. The thing that I most enjoy doing is learning. And as a result, I think I'm well suited to the current academic system, which means that I am a lucky person as far as these things go.
Very lucky. Because, if I were born in a country that didn't have the sort of educational system that mine does, I probably would have fallen prey to some wild animal by now.
Being such a good learner is not always great, first of all you get jealous, competitive classmates in high school who hate you simply for doing better than them (thank God I'm not in pre-med), and going back even further, it makes for painful times on the grade school playground. It also means that when I'm not doing something that ends up being productive (i.e. caught up playing video games for extended periods, boring conversations, lectures about things I already know) it can get extremely frustrating.
I've taken to teaching myself when there's nothing there to teach me. Thus, this summer when my language instruction ended, I took it upon myself to learn on my own time, and now that I have got thus far, I intend to continue, because it is no good to be only one-and-a-half-lingual.
I have also taken it upon myself to learn about as much history, architecture, culture, and art and such that I can while in Germany.
I never really chose to go into science much more than went where people expected me to go. However, it appears that I'm quite lucky in that this is exactly the field I should be in, and I look forward to a lifetime of learning ahead of me. Should be a hell of a ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment