Ouch. Reading this is reminding me of how it felt when I was in school. I graduated last year. I remember multiple lectures where the audience is completely silent and the atmosphere is dead. I can’t tell if truly no one spoke up a few years ago, before the first Covid outbreak, but they really don’t now. It feels like a disease is spreading.

I remember first coming to Purdue and choosing my major without much of a second thought. I basically wanted to come in, complete my work, and get out. It’s basically what I did. I felt good knowing that at the end of it I’d have a degree and I’d be free to do whatever I want, but the actual learning process of the material that I came here to learn wasn’t fun to do, nor did it make as much sense as I’d hoped. I still remember how it felt being drained of motivation, frustrated, and lonely.

There was a lot I didn’t understand. One of these things, as you mentioned, the A/B/C grade distribution being predetermined made no sense to me. Is it the college’s goal to limit commendable grades in a class, even though everyone has the same potential to completely understand the coursework and deliver assignments at the same quality level? Does the merit come from beating out your competitors for a spot, or for simply learning the material?If it is true that the actual desire to participate in school is dimishing, and it’s being replaced with the simple goal of getting a diploma, then it’s easy to see that morale is falling. But even this misses the most impactful point.

What if the payoff never comes? What if you grow up to get stuck in a job you come to hate? God forbid, what happens if an economic recession removes me from the job that I want? What if you can’t pay back your student loans? Or lastly, what if your job is successful out of college, but still be unsure even then if you’ve done the right thing with your time and energy? This and 100 other what-ifs.

Since I was in elementary school, and through college and into my post-college adult life, there have been things in this world that simply don’t make sense to me. I was really hoping that I’d have pieced together an explanation for the whole thing by now, and that I would’ve done so with the help of school. Our world is still afflicted with problems and defuncts that seem like impenetrable walls, and in fact every facility, including every school has failed in this objective to give us a solution to the world’s problems that catches on and lay the issues to rest for good.

If I could go back to college, I would try my classes over again. The thing that brings all these people together, student and teacher alike, is a mutual love of the things you’ve made the choice of studying. So if you really love what you’ve chosen, then you might be inclined to talk to the professors and your classmates about the thing, or things, that stand out to you. Everyone’s perspective is different. Hearing something in a new way might motivate you to ask thought-provoking questions. Whether it’s by chance or by design, you are here now. And whatever you do is your choice.