Thursday, November 20, 2008

Myopic Simpletons

People tell me that Arts modules are easy to score in. They can write a paper the night before and receive a decent grade for it. Unlike engineering and the sciences. Conduct experiments. Compile lab reports. Tabulate findings and results. Amongst others.

If you are one of these people, good for you. More specifically, however, if you are and yet regard Arts as a redundant and wasteful enterprise, then rice balls to you. Professors and tutors who had awarded you the grade were just being nice. I used to write crap and receive A's for it. Yet professors expect much more from graduate students and I need to adjust to this. This simply means that to undergraduates from both the Arts and other faculties, the professors are lenient and would reward accordingly if only the slightest effort is seen. Guess what: I had read some essays written by students from other faculties and they suck big time. These students thought otherwise, and received B's for what would seem C's back at their home faculties. Taking things for granted eh?

It is a gross misconception to believe that in Arts disciplines, students only need to talk cock and crap their way through in their papers and exams. Even if this is true, talking cock and crapping require a degree of academic skill. What's more, this can only be a statement made by myopic simpletons who fail to see the virtue of disciplines being different and diverse, and who aspire to engage and join in the so-called sunrise industries of disciplines. This would be an insult to the spirit of the academia. Such simpletons should not be regarded as undergraduates: crawl back to your caves or feudalistic camps. You have not completed your course of evolution. You are not getting intellectual at all. Moulds and nuts.

It would be sadder if you are studying a discipline simply because it promises better career prospects and not because you are truly interested in it. A sell-out that is. Selling your soul to capitalist ideals. Gotcha. The invisible hand has gotten you. Help!

There were never distinctions between disciplines and existed no hierarchy of knowledge. These are modern inventions. A real prodigy knows all. PhD: Doctor of Philosophy. Mind that before making sweeping comments. You are being taught by its recipients.

Here's the challenge: take as many Arts modules as you can to clear your UE requirements. Get at least B+s for them all, since you say they can be so easy. Prove your worth and not whine.

1 comment:

blue said...

haha i sorta feel that my course is useless though. as for "easy to score in", the bell curve, oh the bell curve.
Yes most profs are lenient. We are all people trying to get by, that's my theory. They are here to do their job to get by, we too, are here to get by. As much as there is talk about interest, beyond interest we all try to get by. Because we need to. They too. They just want to see effort. Effort seen, roll in the grades.
People from other facs are just lucky, cos taking arts as UEs might seem to pull up your grades, but for arts students, since when is a B good enough? Since when is an arts second class taken seriously. Expectations of us are higher, because we seem easier. Seriously getting a B+ is nothing that great. Half the world possibly got a better grade than you. The grades may seem to favour us, the competition is what kills us.