dumb student stress

My brain is just boggled by my school.

Sometimes they act in a way that shows that they expect us to be intelligent, self-starters, who come so prepared to class it's almost as though they think we already know all of the information being presented. Those are times when it's stressful and frustrating, to feel behind before you even begin because you missed the memo that doing the pre-class reading meant you should have it memorized and be ready to apply it to "real life" scenarios. They repeat frequently how hard this year of accelerated study is, and how they know we're stressed and concerned. I didn't start out all that stressed, but after hearing that same sentiment from 4 professors every single day for 3 weeks, you bet I'm squashing down a ginormous bubble of anxiety, pretty much all the time I'm awake and asleep.

Sometimes they act as though we are immature, unmotivated high school students. In response to our stressing out over material to be covered on exams, etc (in response to the above expectations), they develop materials to help us organize our material and study efficiently. Nice, right? I just watched (or rather, fast forwarded through) a nine minute video about a 5 day study plan. I was excited to watch it, hoping for some good tips that I could add to my study arsenal (which has traditionally consisted of...going to class and maybe reviewing my notes the night before the test? In my defense, besides Organic Chemistry, it's worked pretty well thus far).

The film started off a little slow, no problem. I don't understand why you are explaining this little comic strip picture that you've included at the beginning of the presentation, the whole point of a comic is that you don't explain it, but we'll roll with that. A minute or two in, a handy one page chart was presented, allotting particular amounts of time for the study of new material and the review of older material. Fantastic! Fairly self-explanatory, could have been a classroom handout without any kind of review besides "This might help some of you, try it." The person voicing the video then proceeded to read out all of the directions. For every single day. Just in case you didn't catch on that "Prepare Part B: 2 hours, Review Part A: 30 minutes" means that you should start studying a new chunk of material and also review the material you started studying the day before, under "Prepare Part A: 2 hour". All the way to day 5, all 4 chunks of material. Narrated for your convenience.

Because by the time you get to graduate school, you might still have difficulty reading and comprehending material that isn't read out loud* to you.

*I understand that for students who have vision difficulties, this might be quite helpful. And I'm a fan of people highlighting main ideas/the important pieces verbally when they give a handout or a powerpoint lecture. But don't insult our intelligence - even if you can't see what's on the paper, the explanation could be much broader than reading out every step. "On Day 1, divide your material to be studied into 4 parts of about equal difficulty. Study the first part of the material for two hours. This could include a, b, c, etc. On subsequent days, add a new section of the material (for x or y amount of time) and help facilitate your retention of previous information by going back and reviewing the material covered previously. Continue to add new material daily, making sure to review previously studied material, until Day 5 when you can review all of the material and administer a self-test."

/end rant