UCLA: a university filled with some of the most brilliant students in the world, the most creative, inspired and ambitious. Yet, it is also a university filled with students who dream for easy classes with little to no challenge. A place where the ideal BruinWalk grade distribution is the deciding factor of which professor to take or which class to enroll in…We suffer through waitlists and stressful days of enrollment in order to breeze through a class instead of using the limited amount of units we are granted per quarter to take something we are actually interested in.
Students find comfort in what is easy and what they anticipate will not pose as a challenge. This is because failure is not comfortable, failure is not fun, and challenges and failures lie in the same boat. What is challenging is difficult, and what is difficult likely results in failure. But as students, we are meant to fail. We are meant to be challenged. We are meant to be uncomfortable. But how are we supposed to do so when our GPA is our greatest priority within the sphere of academics? How are we expected to pursue what we are interested in if it means taking a toll on our mental and physical health? Our academic performance? Our self-esteem?
Students require guidance and encouragement by those who we learn from, by those who teach us, by those who are our mentors in our day to day activities: our professors. Professors who teach classes that have a more difficult reputation or are more time consuming must make it clear and promote their assistance and mentorship to students instead of taking pride in the difficulty of their class. Because such pride is nonsense! Rather, we need to feel that our success is in the professor’s best interest. We need to feel comfortable failing. We need to feel challenged while simultaneously being looked after. Because once these needs are met, we are far more likely to pursue what stimulates us in a healthy and appropriate manner, and are far less likely to take classes that will only cushion or GPAs and result in little to no intellectual development. Because when we are passionate, when we devote time to what we enjoy, our performance peaks. Passion in our day to day activities sparks productivity.
Why make a course that a student might have great interest in seem entirely miserable? Why display an unapproachable, stand-off attitude to individuals who only want to learn from you? Why make it impossible for students to engage in the classroom, a classroom where their interests stem from? I came into UCLA as physiological sciences major. Why? Because as a high school student, this seemed interesting to me. I had no idea what biochemistry was like at UCLA, so I came in excited to take courses that would give me a degree in this subject. Then, I found out how difficult it was. I found out what kind of classes I had to take for the major. I found out about the deadly curves in the classes. And I was strayed away. I was afraid. I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to do poorly. It just did not seem feasible.
If I was told that in these classes, students are looked after, that their success is the top priority of the professors, then all would be reconsidered. I probably would not be a biochemistry major because my interests have changed since high school, but for the purposes of what is difficult versus what is feasible, it is relevant. If everything I was interested in seemed feasible to go after, if everything students wanted to pursue was coated with mentorship, rationality and an understanding for the wellness of students and commitments we have outside of the classroom, change would be an understatement. It’s time professors acknowledge the importance of student-professor collaboration, engagement and understanding, for this is what calls for success. Once students and professors work together, not against one another, is when everyone can succeed.