discouragement and confusion

I'm an undergrad student in my fifth and last year in college...well this college at least. After this year I plan to go to graduate school to get a degree in library science so I can be a librarian. Before you ask, yes you have to get a degree in library science to be a librarian and guess what? It has to be a master degree because that is all they offer.

Today in my history of communication technologies class, with one of the best professors I've ever had, we talked about grades as a communication technology and we discussed what they communicate. Obliviously many of you would say they communicate how well we know a topic or how well we learn, but do they really? I brought up in class that much of what I have learned in college and things that I remember are not things that I am tested and graded on. Are grades really useful or do they just prove how well we can regurgitate what the teacher wants us to?

The Sam, my prof., made us think. If grades really don't measure what we are learning why do we have them? Well our class said we have them so we can get our degree, so we can get a job, get into grad school...I mentioned that we have them so our school can display itself to other schools, as in "our students have an average GPA of 4.0" or whatever.

Sam told us that the only reason why we have this system in place is because we let it be in place. Basically we agree to follow the rules of grades by agreeing to come to this university, or any university for that matter. But if we don't think it's right, people could choose to not go to the university, perhaps start up a new university with a different way of grading and we could make some change.

This is a valid point, but how can you change this when our society is so grounded in the way things are now? I have been struggling with this concept for a while now. I'm jumping through hoops trying to get my grades up so I can get into graduate school. I'm worrying that I won't have enough extracurriculars and/or that my GPA won't be high enough to get me into grad school and then what will I do? My life dreams will be messed up. The prefabricated plan that society has placed on me will be over and so will my life. As Sam mentioned in class people literally make themselves sick over worrying about these things.

I ask you now as I have been asking myself is this prefabricated plan really life? Somehow I doubt it.

Sometimes I just don't get it. We have a whole world out there. There are many things to explore, to learn, to experience and yet the prefabricated plan forces us to go to school for 2,4,5,6,8, or more years. Everyday packed full of nothing but school, work and homework. Perhaps a little social time. Just so we can get a career where everyday is filled mostly with work. Then we get the family so our days are packed once again, with work and then family things. Eventually you can retire and go out and perhaps experience the world - experience life - when you're too old to fully enjoy it. Is this really what life is all about? And when I say life, I don't mean what society says life is. I mean to core of what God (or whatever you believe) meant life to be. I'm not so sure it is...

Don't get me wrong. I understand you need a career to survive in this world. And of course I would like to get married and have a family. I'm just not sure if we are going about things the right way...

Here is a video I have been show twice this week by two different Com professors, Sam and my com research prof. I think it is supposed to be geared towards teacher/professors trying to get them to teach us more with new technology since this is what we do most days. Look at me, I'm typing up my thoughts on class in my blog. However, I just look at it and feel discouraged about the way life is set up and the I guess the way our learning is set up.