Copy, paste

The NY Times has an article (found here*) about plagiarism. It is quite a bit "Kids these days!", but also raises some valid points: one of specific interest is that it's been shown that students who cheat don't learn as much and/or don't retain knowledge as well.

Which - well, of course. If you're not actually working with the assigned material, you're not going to learn it as well. If I'm told to write a paper on, say, Hamlet, or on the theory of general relativity, I can do one of two things. Option A is to sit down, and read through Hamlet or Einstein, take notes on important points and themes, find a core idea, and work things into that while writing a paper, turning the ideas around in my head and toying with them until they fit. Or, I can take option B, and buy a paper from the internet, put my name on it, and turn it in.

Now, I never even tried to cheat during college. I say this not out of some sense of moral superiority, but if nothing else, there was the fact that you really couldn't cheat at St. John's. I'm sure you could try - I could have downloaded a paper on Dante instead of writing it myself. But those papers are turned in after months of sitting in class discussing things. You're actively engaged with the material long before any papers are due, so if you suddenly hand in an essay that sounds nothing like the way you speak, nor anything close to the ideas you've discussed in class, your professor will notice.

So that's where I'm coming from, and that's why I find it a little baffling that the professor referred to in the article is resorting to in-class writing assignments, so that he has a baseline to compare later papers to, so as to better look out for plagiarism. Wouldn't that time be better spent just discussing the material with the students? Surely "I know that Student A has a great eye for picking up on the broad themes in a given work, and Student B tends more to pick at little details, trying to find great meaning in the flourishes" is just as effective, if not more than basing your judgement on a handwritten essay forced out in a 60-minute class session?

*It has occurred to me that Facebook doesn't import links in notes, so if you're reading this via Facebook: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/opinion/13tue4.html?ref=opinion

Thoughts on my history of math and science.

So I'm graduating on Saturday. St. John's being St. John's we don't have finals and it feels much more like we're just kind of gliding to a halt than anything else. They've given us, as they do, copies of our original admissions essays for our consideration.

I'm finished with my tutorials, which is interesting because it means that, unless I go back to school - which I hope to, though I'm not quite sure in what - I'm done with formal study of, well, everything, but especially math and science. I've taken four years of math and three of science past high school.

When I was in high school, first looking at colleges, I wasn't sure what I wanted to study (I'm still not, for what it's worth). Journalism was a possibility, as were English, poli sci, international relations. In any of the programs I was looking at, at any of the schools, I would have needed maybe a semester or two of economics or statistics, sociology or psychology. I would not need geometry, algebra, calculus, physics, chemistry, biology - none of that.

Then I found St. John's, and while I was hesitant at first I couldn't shake my interest. It looked like there would be no way I could avoid a challenge, which was appealing, and it looked absolutely nothing like high school. That really appealed to me. In high school we sat at individual desks with text books and listened to the teacher talk from the front of the room. At St. John's there were no desks and, really, no discernible front of the room, and the first class I sat in on, a Greek class at Annapolis, the teacher sat at the table along with all the students, they addressed each other as equals - and the only people to write anything on the board were students. This was someplace that was not about furthering professor's careers or producing the best statistics or training students to do something in the future. This was a place that was about learning, all sorts of things, solely for the sake of learning. Study was the end, not the means, and if what you studied didn't land you a dream job right after graduating, that didn't matter, because that wasn't the point.

So I ended up here, and it didn't work out too well at first, because I hadn't figured out the above. I knew St. John's appealed to me, more than other schools, but I hadn't figured out why, because I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. Two of the most important events of my academic career happened between May 2005 and December 2005: I interned at a newspaper (and realized I didn't want to work in journalism), and I got kicked out of school. It's not quite technically true but practically speaking, I flunked out.

So I went, and ended up in London - which was fantastic - and I did lots and lots of thinking about why I liked St. John's, and what I wanted to do with my life. And then I came back, and it wasn't really smooth sailing, but it was smoother, and eventually I found my footing again.

What have I gotten from St. John's?

Well, there's the numbers. Four years of my life. A huge amount of debt. Too many books.

I've gotten a grounding in evolution and genetics, general and special relativity, quantum physics, electricity, mechanics, ancient Greek, literature, philosophy, French, music, chemistry, theology, and anatomy. Will I ever use any of that? Maybe. Will I use the skills I learned along the way? Definitely.

I think, ultimately, the most that I've gotten out of the whole experience is doing it. I've studied Einstein. I've spent three hours on a Saturday trying to get a science experiment to work. I've slogged through ridiculous Greek verb conjugations. I've sat and had serious discussions about the Bible, about Dante, and about philosophy texts that need to be broken down word-by-word to be understood.

Honestly I don't know what that adds up to. I know it adds up to something, some significant change. Maybe I would have gotten it at any other school but I doubt it; I certainly wouldn't have studied Gregorian chant and quantum mechanics elsewhere. I was scared of a lot of what I studied, but I studied it, and usually I learned it, and there's something to be said for that.

Those graduation articles

They run them every year - quite possibly the same exact ones - in just about every newspaper and magazine. The 'advice for the new college grad' column, in which some two-bit journalist coughs up a bunch of hackneyed advice about how you should do what you love, and travel the world, and wear sunscreen, and do things that scare you, and Always Follow Your Dreams.

Speaking, for the first time, as a member of the allegedly targeted audience*, I would like to comment on these articles, and say: SHUT UP.

What's that? You think I should follow my dreams and work to live not live to work, and travel abroad? I'd love to, really. I'd also love to get a job doing what I love. But you know what? Your generation did everything they could to destroy the American economy because you followed your dreams of having a charmless McMansion in suburban upstate New York and two cars. While I was sitting in 10th grade history you guys were eating KFC and cheering our honor killings in Afghanistan, and when I was deciding what college to go to you were half-heartedly wondering if this war against Iraq was really a good idea. And as I was doing what you've said I should do - follow my heart, do things that move me, get a degree in something I like rather than something immediately profitable - you were giggling as you engaged in the Sisyphean task of using your credit card to buy crappy houses and make them unaffordable for those who really need affordable housing.

So. How about you all shut up with your incredibly pointless 'advice' for people who have yet to take a massive crap on society? Yes, I really would love to spend a year in Americorps, and I in fact have the opportunity to do so. But I also have spent almost forty thousand borrowed dollars on my degree, and those kind lenders would like that money back ASAP, so there are some obvious problems in spending the next year working for four hundred dollars a month.

How about, instead of annually masturbating about the Hope and Future Ahead, you all put that energy into making education affordable?

*Assuming that it's not just some writer who regrets his decisions in life talking to himself.

-----

Tangentially, crappy job market aside, I am unspeakably, unimaginably glad to have two weeks (to the day!) left at this school. It's been swell, but the swelling's gone down.

Argh

From the education section of an online job application: "Please describe your area of specialization or other education details. Please do not exceed 1000 characters."

*sigh*

My thoughts on senior math, condensed

Dearest Lobachevsky,

BITE ME.

Sincerely,

A Student

Argh

Dear College Administration,

1. Seriously, you send a flier about a ski trip as an attached file? Annoying, I'd prefer you just put it in the body of the message, but fine. You send a flier about a ski trip attached as a .ppt? Really? Is something suddenly wrong with .doc or .pdf? Powerpoint? Really?

2. See, here's the thing about campus email. Do you remember that time I think last spring when you sent out an announcement saying that email is now considered an official means of communication from the administration, in the interest of reducing the amount of paper? Well, I was apparently silly in assuming that meant that if you sent out a notice through email, you would not then print out four hundred copies of the exact same letter and put it in our campus mailboxes. Because...do I need to spell it out for you? Please say no.

Further

I'm increasingly convinced that the absolute only reason that anyone took Marx's economic and political theories remotely seriously were twofold:
1. Fear over the changes that the industrial revolution brought. Humans, being the stupidest successful species ever, tend to have a demented fear of Change. Marx said, "No, you're totally right, you're not being fulfilled as a person if you're not out farming and growing your own food." He did everything he could to legitimize the ridiculous discontent at the changes in society.
2. That argument nicely set up, he just pointed and said, "Look! The Capitalist! You're not happy? It's because of him!"

Et voila - not only do people have their baseless dissatisfaction justified, but they have what everyone really wants, a scapegoat. He's brilliant with his language, but Marx isn't anything more than a talented sophist.

In other news, after having gotten a rejection letter from Grad School A yesterday, I was really pissed when I got a skinny letter from Grad School B (by far my top choice) today. "I was fine yesterday, but I don't think I can handle two rejections in a row, so I'm not going to open this until this evening, after seminar," says I.

Turns out it was just a note saying they have my complete application and I should get an acceptance or rejection within a month.

Also in the mail was a letter to all the seniors from the Dean which began along the lines of "Now that you've been notified that your senior essay has been accepted..." Which would be great. If we'd gotten notice about whether our essays have been accepted or not yet, but we haven't. So, as always, good job college administration!

Faulkner

Maybe it's because I spent all of last week playing with grammar and trying to make everything right in my paper, but I have the overwhelming urge to bring Mr. William Faulkner back to life, bitch-slap him, tie him to a chair, and make him edit "Was" from Go Down, Moses until it's nicely structured, has commas used in appropriate places, and doesn't sound like an 8-year-old with Downs Syndrome.

My internal clock needs resetting

I'm incredibly off-schedule, because - in addition to resuming class - I slept for about five hours on Sunday afternoon. I was exhausted - Saturday was in no way an early night but I managed to make it to work on Sunday morning regardless. Then I slept from about 12:30 to 5:30 or so, which meant that when the time when sane people who have class at 9 AM go to bed rolled around, I was wide awake.

Off to bed soon with me tonight, then.

Also, it's done. 100%, revised-edited-proofed, printed, bound in a report cover, ready to turn in tonight, DONE.

I have strangely mixed feelings about that.

Why that final proofread is important

"...the Constitution establishes a social order, then builds upon that social order to find the general will, and ultimately the document itself functions as a Constitution."

...apparently while writing, at some point my brain decided that since I'm writing about how the Constitution functions as a social contract, the two terms are completely interchangeable. The rare case of a typo not being factually wrong - the Constitution does indeed function as a constitution - but still very, very wrong.

Feeling unfulfilled

Dear admissions offices of universities I applied to,

PLEASE stop sending me emails that do not, in fact, reveal whether I have been accepted or not. I'm sure the open houses you're hosting are very interesting and I would love to attend - especially you, UCL - but I lack the means to do so. All that's coming from those emails is I see an email from someplace I applied, and get very excited, and open it, and discover it is not that exciting.

Yours,

A slightly high-strung applicant

Two scenes

Last night I got on an editing kick. My adviser has this thing about using the verb "to be" and I'm pretty sure he'd like it if I didn't use it at all, ever. I'm not quite good enough to do that, but I was making a good-faith attempt to reduce it, because in many places the language was a bit sloppy. That, plus various other editorial things, were kind of....well. You know how some people can get totally sucked into a video game, or TV series (fine, I do that too with DVDs), or puzzles, or whatever, and you say, aah, it's evening, I'm just going to do this for a bit, and then the next thing you know it's some ungodly hour?

Right.

So I give up on my staring contest with the English language and go to bed way, way later than I should.

My alarm goes off at about 7:15, which leaves me more than enough time to get ready for work, where I belong by 8:30.

Apparently, I woke up enough to turn my alarm off, and then rolled over and went right back to sleep. Something in my brain was still up, though, because I recall then, after some vague amount of time, thinking that maybe I should get up. So I decide to start slow and open my eyes, and then I look at the clock. Which is telling me it's now 8:29.

Anyway, ultimately it wasn't a big deal, because A) work is about thirty seconds out the door and B) my boss really didn't care. But the point is that I was late to my job at a library because I overslept because I stayed up too late playing with grammar, and I think that little vignette serves as my entry into the League of Pathetically Geeky.

Thesis thought of the night

Occasionally I feel that my trying to write academically about the Constitution is pretty much the same task as a 12-year-old girl writing academically about the Jonas Brothers.

On writing and stress

We're now in the tail-end of our class-free writing period (class-free being that we don't meet for seminar or tutorials, not that we're becoming white trash). Papers are due on the 14th.

On Tuesday I met with my adviser to go over a draft, a meeting in which we said, "Yes, this sucks. Good. Now what do you want to write?" "Well, I think that actually I'm trying to write about how the Constitution is a social contract; I had to talk about freedom at first to get my brain there." "Good. Go write it."

So I did. I did a bit of work on Tuesday, and then pretty much sat down yesterday and said, "I am going to write this." And I did. And it turned out the paper I want to write isn't too similar to what I actually already wrote, so it wasn't so much 'copy/paste/rearrange' but just 'write'. I'd told my adviser I would email it to him Thursday morning, which is today. So I sat and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and I thought and thought and thought and then wrote more. 21 pages, almost all new, in about the space of 24 hours.

Now I have emailed that off, and now I'm sitting here like, 'huh. no writing to be done. odd.'

I can't imagine how I'm going to feel not just once I've turned in the paper (my guess, though, is relieved and very drunk), but once I finish my oral and am truly and honestly done with this paper. It occupies such a huge part of my mind I'm having a hard time imagining not having it to work on.

I blame the economy

An email I received this morning, the third of it's kind:

Thank you for submitting your application to [university]. We very much appreciate your interest in the School.

You can check the status of your application at any time and see which documents and test scores have been received by logging into your account. We anticipate that admission decisions will be announced sometime around the third week in March.

We have received a record-breaking number of applications this year, and consequently still have some credentials that need to be processed and entered into the system. If you have submitted materials that are not appearing online as being received, this probably means that your credentials have been delivered to our office but have not yet been entered into the system. We are updating these records as quickly as possible, so please do not re-send documents. We will notify you if your application is incomplete.

We appreciate your patience and understanding, and thank you again for your interest in the [school].

Meaning: the economy blows so hard right now that no one can get a job so they're all going back to school. You're screwed, dude.

Argh. Just tell me I didn't get accepted so I can stop waiting, okay?

Just one more piece!

I do not for the life of me understand how anyone ever wrote anything prior to the ability to just switch windows to Tetris and idly rotate falling blocks as you mull over ideas.

Heh

I know that eventually the shiny will wear off and I'll go back to my normal self, but this is really damn nice to see:In other news, my senior essay is going to kill me, so I'm going to go take a nice hot shower, drink a beer, and go to bed stupidly early.

Grunt

No reasonable person can deny that Rousseau's Social Contract had a significant influence on the framing of the Constitution.*

Unfortunately, either Rousseau or those framers completely fucked something up, because Rousseau says that representative government is a form of tyranny and obviously, the Constitution says otherwise.

This is extremely problematic.

*If this is not true I will kill myself immediately, because my senior thesis will in fact be a complete and total farce at that point.

Ugh

It's time to stop working on the grad school applications and go the hell to bed when you put your date of birth as month, day, year-that-you-want-to-start-your-studies-at-this-institution.

Make it end please...