In reading Gerald Graff’s book, I’m able\u00a0to put into perspective the past actions of professors as an undergraduate in the mid-eighties.\u00a0 I started college at American University in D.C.. An initial shocker was the large number of\u00a0students, my classmates,\u00a0that had graduated from a private high school.\u00a0 Already, I felt less qualified to be there.<\/p>\n
Having always been a reader and writer and therefore comfortable in my skills,\u00a0imagine my shock, when at the beginning of my first semester in English Comp., the\u00a0professor told me my writing was backwards!\u00a0\u00a0I figured her being British had something to do with her not appreciating my abilities.\u00a0 Yet she never\u00a0defined, nor aided to correct my backwardness, just continued with the criticism.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
If that wasn’t bad enough, during\u00a0my first\u00a0biology class, the\u00a0professor- a PHD- concluded his lecture on the human body with the words, “Do you\u00a0believe me?” After momentary silence, most of us\u00a0agreed with the\u00a0data he had given us and what we had diligently taken notes on, only to discover that most of it was not accurate. He ended class\u00a0ranting about\u00a0our need to Question\u00a0Authority!<\/p>\n
So, feeling pumped-up from that lecture, I tried this\u00a0‘questioning’ with\u00a0the British instructor and guess what?\u00a0 She would have none of it. She felt I was being rude. (Little did she know\u00a0how much courage it required of me to\u00a0speak, never mind ask questions).<\/p>\n
During my second semester,\u00a0when I asked my American English teacher if she found my writing to be backwards, she said, “no-just wordy.”\u00a0 Was that all?<\/p>\n
After two years,\u00a0 I transferred to Univ. of Md at College Park.\u00a0 Many people questioned my rationale for leaving ‘prestigious’\u00a0AU for a state school.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although many people fondly\u00a0recall\u00a0their undergrad years, I don’t. I followed the rules and degree outlines and graduated almost\u00a0as clueless as the day\u00a0I arrived. The irony is that I had graduated both high school and college with honors, yet felt so totally unprepared for t he world.<\/p>\n
I find Graff’s idea of restructuring\u00a0higher education invigorating, but daunting because already I have run into the attitude supporting the more traditional way simply because that’s the way it has always been.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Susan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In reading Gerald Graff’s book, I’m able\u00a0to put into perspective the past actions of professors as an undergraduate in the mid-eighties.\u00a0 I started college at American University in D.C.. An initial shocker was the large number of\u00a0students, my classmates,\u00a0that had graduated from a private high school.\u00a0 Already, I felt less qualified to be there. Having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}