When I came to college as a tender and innocent 18-year-old, I tried to pay heed to all the various warnings I received: "Don't eat too much -- it's easy to gain weight in college," "Get enough sleep every night," "Don't drink the punch, whatever you do." I've done pretty well with all of these, a claim that, as long as there are no scales around, no one can dispute.
I received one additional mandate before leaving home: "Remember, you need to do more studying in college than in high school. You should study for two to three hours for every hour you're in class." This challenge hasn't gone so smoothly -- truth be told, when I sit down to study, it's like the studying is our football team, and I'm Duke. And we all know what a beatdown that shapes up to be.
It's funny how college completely changes everyone's reading habits. In our "former lives," a.k.a. high school, reading this much would have gotten us branded as hopeless book nerds and exiled to the matinee showing of "The Fellowship of the Ring" with the A-V Club. (Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything.) In contrast, most college students are asked to absorb tons of written material. Of course, students in Certain Undergraduate Schools Which Shall Not Be Named don't have this problem, but in the College of Arts and Crafts we read for our supper, hundreds of pages a week.
Part of the tragedy of the whole studying process is that most University students would probably read about their respective subjects if they didn't have to. Like good little Jeffersonians, we enjoy the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Unfortunately, reverse psychology is at work and makes studying in the required sense unappealing. Everybody has seen this process at work in children: Tell little Bobby to eat his vegetables, and they'll most likely end up catapulted onto your face. Pretend that you don't want him to eat them, though, and he'll wolf those suckers down and beg for more.
Though students our age like to think of themselves as beyond such things, we're simply not. The mere knowledge that I must read pages 213-252 makes the whole affair drag on like a bad movie. Students are that susceptible. If Student Health encouraged students to drink, I bet there'd be an underground black market in two-percent milk.
Despite the obstacles involved, I make every effort to do all the reading for class. The first step is finding the right environment. Studying at home makes the most sense, as no time is wasted walking from place to place. That doesn't satisfy me, however. I find that I'm much more amenable to studying if there's more excitement involved; if I take those same books to a café or library, now I'm out doing something. WAHOO-WA!
This approach has its own drawbacks, as well. I've come to realize that I require absolute quiet when studying -- not just a reasonably quiet hush, but complete and utter inside-the-mummy's-tomb silence. Music, a studying aid for many, drives me completely off track -- I just end up focusing on the music. Classical? I'll start conducting along. Jazz? I'll start tapping my feet and saying things like "Groovy, man." Hip-hop? I'll start to bob my head along with the beat, à la Ferrell and Kattan in "A Night at the Roxbury." Not only does this make me look like an idiot, but the last time I tried this in one of those Clemons cubicles, I badly injured myself.
Silence is also critical because of my shameful tendency to eavesdrop on conversations while studying. However, I don't feel I'm to blame for this. It's not my fault that I always seem to be studying right next to a demon-possessed alien rodeo clown who's married to his stepsister but is having an affair and is explaining all of this in excruciating detail to his friend, the ex-CIA operative-turned-makeup salesperson who's had his gallbladder removed twice. Some things are just beyond my control.
At the risk of sounding trite, I still encourage everybody to put in the time to study thoroughly whenever possible. It's true that other pursuits, like building a pyramid out of empty Dr Pepper cans, might produce more visible, tangible results, but studying produces the most important result of all -- graduation, which, romantic that I am, I believe is something we all still want. You can study with me if you like, but if you see me bobbing my head as you approach, stand back and keep your fingers on 911.
Matt's column runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. He can be reached at mwaring@cavalierdaily.com.
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