There's a point to this, I promise.
Cornell really buys into the American notion of a liberal arts "take intro courses in subjects you don't care about goddamn" education, so we have mandatory Freshman Writing Seminars. By sheer force of luck (read: rigging the randomized seminar selection ballot), I was able to have the same professor for both of my writing seminars, and so I've had an opportunity to see my writing develop throughout the year through the eyes of another person.
Now, the economics major at Cornell essentially assumes that you will be double-majoring in mathematics if you want to go to graduate school, which is exactly what I'm doing. I am not, by nature, a math person. My first semester in Calculus, I am embarrassed to say, was gotten through by a combination of luck (God Bless you, idiotic premeds, who dragged the mean on exams down to Hell with you) and sheer force of will. Sometime during this semester, though, I had what the alcoholics call "A moment of clarity," an epiphany, or what I would term in this case, "A sudden ability to see the blindingly obvious," and now math just makes sense to me in ways it didn't. I can't explain it other than to say that suddenly, everything that seemed arbitrary to me made perfect and complete sense, and I can't understand why I couldn't understand things.
What's interesting about this is that around the same time that this happened, I started getting comments on papers I was writing for my writing seminar saying that line of thinking was "reductionist." Now, because of my professor's biases, I think "reductionist" should partially be understood to mean "retarded," but if I think about it myself, I would say more diplomatically that the way I think about problems now really has changed dramatically since the beginning of the year.
I remember coming back from TASP and realizing that I just couldn't see the world the same way I did before the program, in part because of the warm and fuzzy experience of TASPer love and all that, but because of my seminar as well -- I read things differently after TASP than I did before, for example. It seems like, much more subtly, the same sort of thing is happening again, but with courses that are stacked toward a very specific kind of logical reasoning (namely, for the first time in my life, having a schedule packed with math and language courses) instead of the humanities.
So there's the story, and here's the question:
Are any of you experiencing the same thing? Not that you're specifically being molded by math courses, of course, but that you feel that in some readily identifiable way, you've developed intellectually, for good or ill? What has college done to your brain?
9 comments:
I'm going to respond to your actual question later.
I can't now, because I am too sleepy.
But I wanted to tell you that this week, there's a big campaign on campus about "The R-Word" and how you're not supposed to call people or things "retarded" because it's hurtful, and therefore harmful to society.
I'm fine with that, but I hate their design work. One of the main table fliers is like,
"N-gg-r
Sp-c
F-g
Retard
And therein lies the problem"
And that's it. Size 40 or so, Times New Roman or something like that. Black ink on white paper. Then there's some information on the other side about the campaign, giving reasoned arguments against the use of the word as a derogatory term.
But I think it's a bad flier. I don't like it.
Haha, yeah, I was shamelessly referencing that "movement."
Those people annoy me only in that they seem incapable of understanding that "retarded," as a slang word, is connected to stupidity at this point, as opposed to actual disability -- "special," used sarcastically, is closer to what they think "retarded" means.
In other words, there's a world of difference between saying the word "nigger" and invoking generations of horrific discrimination and exploitation, and saying "retarded" and invoking the idea that something is dumb.
But I guess it's asking too much to expect privileged white kids to understand that.
I'm getting more and more intellectually conservative; that is, I don't get the same shameful erection every time I encounter the word "phallogocentrism". I'm more prone to make arguments about "sympathetic reading" - more forgiving, when it comes to what history reveals to be oppressive, dangerous lines of thought (as so many great lines of thought have been). I went through a period this year wherein I wanted to treat everything hyper-ethically/dialogically - my favorite term was (and could still be) "violence".
I dunno. I picked up Judith Butler again this week for my feminism class. She's still cool; we've still got a thing. It's just that, y'know, Augustine and Heidegger, patriarchal/violent as they might be... mmm.
I hope I can read a little better, I guess. If not, there's always milking cows.
PS - My e-mail is on the DS website - write me plz.
DYLAN
Okay, now I answer the question.
Side note: Liv, when I hear/read the word "voyeuristic" I think of you.
Not because you are, but because you use it twice as often (at least) as other people.
Anyway.
College has not made me think as much as it should've. My historical linguistics class did change the way I think about language, and the way that I think about school, to an extent, and in general, to an extent, but not in a sweeping way.
My way of thinking has changed a lot more because of social influence this year, since this is such a weird, weird place. And besides, my classes have been languages that I'm used to, and Humanities Lite, or Humanities Off-Center. The social sciences have been the major difference, but they're still set up in a way that's too familiar to make me mentally shift.
I don't know whether I'm missing out on an important opportunity there or not. I do feel more legitimate, intellectually speaking. I know more things. I know what I'm talking about more of the time. I talk about things that I know about more of the time. It's comfortable, but I don't think it's that lazy. It's just more directed. I don't think it's a bad thing.
Hi Dylan! long time no...anything. Also, I am officially making a bid to romance you away to UChicago for your post-telluridean education. Maybe it's too early to be thinking about that. But whatever. If not now, then I'll forget to do it later.
also, liv, to answer your question: my intellectual development thus far in college can be characterized as a series of turnings away. I think I could have phrased that better. whatever. i find as i pursue various paths of interest that they become ever more devoid of value. which is inevitably soul-crushing. so, for the most part, i think less now.
My early Soviet film class has completely and utterly changed the way that I look at art. Like, all of it. I probably can't express it very coherently here, but good lord, those Soviet filmmakers were amazing. Anyone from Cornell I remember watching about 10 minutes of "Strike" by Sergei Eisenstein (it included one of the many dead babies from those six weeks; this particular one was, I believed, dropped from a high balcony by evil Tsarist police)? Watch the whole thing sometime. Because it's AWESOME.
Also, holy shit! Dylan! Aaaagh! I must email you!
College has turned me into a damn-fool idjut. Or, perhaps, an "r-word." (Our campus has yet to experience this little sensation.)
It took about four or five months of humanities classes to convince me that I already know more about literary and critical theory than is necessary or advisable for the healthy development of my plastic, juvenile mind. Now I spend my days reading about farms and woodcraft for my landscape class and writing things that no one will ever see-- whether or not they're printed, since no one reads any of the campus publications.
So:
1) I want to major in something that a) resembles American Studies and b) will teach me how to write.
2) No such major exists at Harvard. Environmental Studies (e.g. my landscape class) is interesting and about the United States, but it involves visual and not written culture. English teaches you about writing, but I don't know if I want to be making, Jesus, elegant arguments about lit-ruh-chuh for the next three years.
3) I've stopped caring. (So long, graduate degree. We were close once.)
Why fuss? Massachusetts is beautiful, we're young, and there's plenty of good work to be done out from under the curricular bullwhip.
I'll throw my hat in for ceasing to give a shit.
Cornell has a big Soviet ex-pat community, with some of the most brilliant and most selfless individuals I have ever met. They are also some of the most horrifically abused individuals I have ever met. Their stories, and my study of economics, has taught me that evil does exist -- and when I say "evil," I mean it with as much force as it is possible for language to convey.
I have come to appreciate that we are all animals, beyond the mere intellectual level on which most people are able to appreciate this fact. And because of this, I have a difficult time caring about any self-aggrandizing study of human culture or human society. It seems almost quaint to me.
Dylan?!
I agree with Emily. I have become brain dead since college began. I am especially brain-dead right now. I am supposed to be studying for a math mid-term. Help, Olivia?
As for Judith Butler. Only got a glimpse of her a couple of weeks ago when she was speaking...I unfortunately could not stay for the entire talk. Ah, well. There will be plenty of opportunities.
Talk to me, TASPers. I miss you that much.
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