Relatively speaking, my tuition is pretty cheap. Two days ago, in my prosthetics class we had a guest speaker. She inspired this blog. My frustration may have partially stemmed from the fact that I just wanted to do my work and not have to listen to her. But as she spoke, I began to disagree with everything she said more and more.
Committees. They wanted us to join committees. Apparently, the more members of our little orthotics/prosthetics club that are on these committees, the more leverage we have. The example was that if we have a problem with parking we should join the parking committee to lobby for more parking or something. I don't know nor do I care about parking. Really...walking from the back of the parking lot to your classroom isn't the biggest problem in school. Unfortunately they do not seem to have a committee with the purpose of eliminating pointless committees.
The tutoring center came next. Every kid knows they have a tutoring center. It's advertised all over the place. Why do they need to take the time to go around to each class explaining all the benefits of it. If you need help and are unaware that there is a tutoring center, then you have problems. And why is it even necessary to have a tutoring center in the first place. Why not eliminate the whole thing, eliminate the lady's job who told me about it and lower my tuition by $2. Maybe I wrote about this before, but there is a scholarship here for kids who did poorly in HS. Eliminate this. Stop letting kids into college with a 1.7 HS GPA and I would have to assume that the tutoring center would just disappear on its own. Ironically enough, there is no tutor for prosthetics...well there are tutors I guess, I call them classmates. Why she had to give her spiel in this class is even more befuddling.
Am I calling every person that's ever used the tutoring center an idiot? No. The option is there so if you need it then take it and you are smarter for doing so. But I think by forcing kids to use their text books, outside materials, form study groups and (ahhhhhghgh) go to class, they would only be strengthening their academic abilities.
I have used the tutoring center before. I can't say it was my last resort. I used it as a freshman at UMD for math because I didn't go to class. I also used it for my writing class. I just had them proofread my papers (journalism majors are good for something I guess). I used it once here for chem. Basically the only reason I ever used it was because it was easier to go there and have someone explain it than to read the book.
And yes, there is a diversity committee. I am thinking that by joining I will be increasing my chances at one of the diversity scholarships. The problem is that I am too lazy.
