Professor Or Punisher?
If I have learned anything in my time at Concordia thus far it is that professors feel that it is inherently necessary to punish you the week before any break from classes. They do this in many ways. The most common way is the multiple choice test. Or if they feel especially angry on the day they construct the syllabus, maybe a ten page essay test. I’ve always wondered what it is about breaks that make the professors want to pile up homework and stress right before it. Is it that they don’t want their students to have a chance to sail smoothly into the sunset? Is it that they want to punish you for the fun you’re going to have on break before you have it? Is it that it just happens to work out best if they structure their courses so the sections seem to all end on the same week? That’s the most common answer among professors that I have talked to, at least. Whatever the reason, after making it through the week of pain I made my way home for spring break.
Everyone has such great stories about all the cool places and things they did for spring break. It seems like every time I ask someone, “How was your spring break?” I get an answer along the lines of…
“Oh man it was great! First, I went to Mississippi and built a house with Habitat for Humanity. After that I made my way Oregon and drove all the way down costal highway in a stick shift convertible that I didn’t know how to drive. And then I climbed a mountain that was three miles high. It was the greatest time ever man, how was yours?”
And I respond with…
“I didn’t do much, thanks.”
“Not much” consisted of sleeping in until two and putting off my homework until the day before it was due. I did end up doing a few fun things during break though.
The first fun thing I did was go look at guitars with my sister at the Guitar Center in Roseville. Walking in that store made me feel like a kid in a candy store. All of these guitars that I can play with, but at the same time I’ve never been more nervous than when I was testing out a $3600 Gibson. After snooping around for a bit, my sister bought herself a guitar, (an Epiphone acoustic), and we went home.
Probably the most fun thing I ended up doing over break was hanging out with friends. We went to Minneapolis to walk around and get Pizza Luce, (which is by far the best pizza in the world). Just seeing all the friends from high school that I haven’t seen in a while was really enjoyable. Even while having fun towards the end of the break, I was ready to come back up to school and see my friends up here, and then it hit me!
After this break I realized that the professors don’t pile on homework because it’s fun, they do it because these are the times that they will be able to get away with it. By the end of break no one remembers the massive amounts of homework given out before break and many, (like myself), almost want to come back up to school. Those professors know that if they pile on the homework before break it will all be forgiven when the students return fresh after a week of fun.