On Imagination
When brainstorming topics for BetterGrads blog articles, I frequently refer to what I think of as “the big three” in academic-newsworthy-land: The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times education section, and top keyword hits on Google news. Or perhaps the Cronk, every now and again. And that’s probably TMI on the breath of my daily media intake. I search within my comfort zone, and I pick topics that fit, usually passing on subjects that seem hard to squeeze into the category of educational blogging, such as this piece on imagination recently featured in the Chronicle.
And then it occurred to me. After devouring every last word of that brilliant article. I’m guilty of the very same rut college students find themselves in when playing it safe and going through the motions: Pleasing professors. Regurgitating lecture material in essays. A “least possible work for the max possible grade” philosophy. Praying for frivolous extra credit opportunities. Going through the motions.
Okay, so a laissez-faire attitude is somewhat necessary to maintain the laid-back edge of the privileged, easily-bored flavor of today’s college-going culture, sure. But perhaps students would feel more fulfilled by allowing their imaginations to breathe as a way of enjoying the freedoms of student life.
For example, I took a sociology class as a requirement course with 200 other students my junior year in college. The professor was asinine and dense, the students were apathetic, and the course time cut right into my dinner hour. I pushed aside my genuine interest in sociological issues and attended the least amount of classes I could to maintain an “A,” painfully churning out each of the three required papers, carefully comparing them with the assignment prompts and my scanty notes to make sure each element necessary for the “A” was present. This actually required a lot of effort. I received an A and learned nothing.
Flash forward four years. My younger sister (college junior) just completed a comparable liberal studies class. Densely asinine teacher and mouth-breathing students in check. For the final paper, the prompt was to apply certain concepts to a case study from the class. My sister could have churned out re-worded lecture notes from a few weeks ago and plugged in all of the necessary elements with the last of her energy. Instead, she rolled up her sleeves and wrote a succinct, moving story that connected the trajectory of events from the case study with that of her own life, citing the required concepts and themes throughout. It was unexpected, personal and imaginative. And she got a B. For not following the assignment.
But… the story doesn’t end there. She immediately shot the professor an e-mail, (politely) arguing that she indeed did follow the assignment, simply in a imaginative way. She defended her creative essay and detailed point-by-point how the format was acceptable. The grade was changed to an A.
Point in case: I wish I’d taken a few more risks and allowed my imagination to breathe while in college. I received straight As for four years, never once earning a B, and yet I have this regret. Sure, I learned about fascinating concepts and produced work that I was immensely proud of and never missed a homework assignment, but I was too afraid to steer off the safe, boring, straight-ahead path of academia to allow my personality to shine in many of my essays. They were technical and dry beyond belief, some of them. Grammatically correct, yes. Devoid of personality, I’m afraid so.
College is an opportunity to air out that budding imagination, because once thrown into the real world, trial and error is over. I work as a copywriter for a bank right now, and most of the adjectives I write get edited out because they’re too risky. Risky adjectives like “robust.”
I wish I hadn’t been scared to piss off my professors every once in a while, because while I agreed with their progressive viewpoints most of the time… sometimes I would have had something radically different to bring to the table.
And getting an “A” for that would have felt real nice.
