I don't think it's a huge secret that I love PostSecret. (I also love badminton, long walks on the beach, easy-going music...SOMEBODY LOVE ME DAMMIT) I subscribe to it, and every week, when the site is updated on Sundays, my Google Reader gets just a little bit brighter (or more depressing, depending on how many suicide/divorce/hate/fuckoff postcards happen to be in there that week).
This week's update made me particularly despondent, because one of the secrets this week was this sad note:
To whomever wrote this secret, I have no hatred and bear no ill wills. I have nothing but sorrow and pity for you. You clearly did not put in the effort to get the most out of one of the greatest opportunities available on this planet. This is a school that brilliant people halfway around the world scrimp and sacrifice to attend. This is a school that cares so much about the pure integrity of education, instead of its politics, that it streams classes on the internet for free so that anyone can learn for the sake of learning. This is a school that still has Nobel laureates teaching undergraduates, when in most top-tier schools in places like England, NO professors teach undergrads. This is a school that makes good, smart, hardworking people and sends them all over the world to do important, life-changing work for others.
But you already knew all that (I hope.)
I don't suspect that UC Berkeley is the perpetrator here. If "UC Berkeley" had been replaced with any other major, top-tier American university, your message would probably have stayed the same.
You, sir/madam, are at fault. You are at fault for having wasted four years of your life NOT experiencing an incredibly vibrant city, full of interesting (if crazy) people that you will NOT find anywhere else. You are at fault for NOT taking the initiative to go out and explore the amazing selection of restaurants in the immediate vicinity. You are at fault for NOT choosing a subject you truly, honestly loved to study, and "it wasn't available" is NOT an excuse, not at a school like Berkeley, because you can design your own majors here. (I admit that I, too, am guilty of choosing a concentration I do not entirely enjoy, but that's more the fault of the department's poor organization than of the subject itself. I DO like microbiology and immunology, but probably less so than social psychology.) You are at fault for NOT putting in the effort to strive for the best and milk every last drop of knowledge out of what your teachers wish to pass on to you, despite the occasional questionable teaching that almost all of us here - or at any other school - encounter. You are at fault for NOT wanting it enough. You are at fault for expecting everything to fall into your lap on a silver platter. You are at fault for NOT fighting through the initial cold, impersonal collective shadow cast by the 35,000 other students here. You are at fault for NOT thinking outside the box and believing that education is just books, pens and classrooms.
Berkeley has its flaws, yes. But what school doesn't? We like to blame the school from time to time, and sometimes, it really IS the school's fault. But it is NEVER ALWAYS the school's fault.
~"If you are bored with Berkeley, you are bored with life." - Clark Kerr, first Chancellor of UC Berkeley~
I'll bet you never heard that one.
It really did take me four years to realize how incredibly, eerily true that statement rings. My path to discovering the power behind that simple, almost comedic sentence was not the easiest, mostly because I did not give myself the chance at first. It felt stupid, and to some extent, it still feels stupid.
Here's the bottom line:
It's 2009, I'm 21 years old, and I'm graduating in about thirteen weeks with a degree in Immunology.
I've never been more glad to have made that stupid journey. Swear to Oski.
Posts
So, when I first saw this, my first reaction was to assume that the author is not actually a Berkeley student. However, my new theory is that they had to read The Little Prince in one of their classes.
ReplyDeleteBUT, assuming neither is true, I think we can use Le Petite Prince as an example as to why you're right. Le Petite Prince was presented as an Opera last semester in Zellerbach. It is read in the original not only in French 3 or 4, but in higher level French Literature classes, Political Science classes, Comp lit classes, and other classes on campus. The MRC has copies of dance, animation, and cinema versions of The Little Prince. You can learn about historical contexts, linguistic forms, anything related to the text here, to enlighten your understanding of the book (which apparently is a greater treasure trove of knowledge than all the thousands of scholars on campus). If the book was really so enlightening, then why did the author not pursue its study in many different formats and forums across the campus?!?
It also may just have been in jest, to suggest the nature of their infatuation with the text. I know I have uttered this phrase many times over, and looking back on it, my experiences at Cal have opened me to these things that I say have taught me "more than college". I doubt that the text "The Little Prince" would have had the same impact on the poster's life had they not been shaped by everyone at Cal.
ReplyDeleteI love you Gordo.
Sup, Gordo. It's Stephen Gamboa. I just wanted to say that I feel you on the Berkeley love, and I'm glad that you talk about it all the time. I actually annoy my friends here on Long Island with all my stories of how fucking awesome Cal is. I'm glad you feel the same. I hope to move back to the Bay Area, if not Berkeley, when I graduate and stay there for the rest of my life! Go Bears!
ReplyDelete"My ENTIRE UC Berkeley education" presumably means exactly that; his -educational experience- at UC Berkeley. If he needs to use the vibrant city culture and wonderful cuisine as an escape from a dreary educational experience this is hardly encouraging, n'est-ce pas?
ReplyDeleteEvery single friend I have at UC Berkeley (as compared to acquaintance) is absolutely, painfully miserable. Whether with life or with Berkeley, I don't know. That said, several of them transferred out of Berkeley to other schools (Stanford or other UCs) and are much happier now, thank you.
Perhaps you are fortunate in your choice of major; not all departments are the same.
Most of my friends at Berkeley are engineers, and I haven't seen an engineering class yet with a reasonable approach to teaching the material.
Teaching bottom-up instead of top down? Absurd.
Example:
Professor to class - advanced communications course. "Class, what is a diode?"
"A P-N device with characteristics (x)."
"But what does it do?"
*blank looks*
(It allows current to flow in only one direction)
Having never been a Cal student (despite living in Berkeley for a short time) I don't know what kind of opportunities are available there compared to the universities I'm familiar with. However, the reasons you give for criticizing this postsecret are not a defense of the university, but an attack on the poor... post-secretive (post-op?) fellow.
Get off your high horse and walk like the rest of us.
You've missed a major point of my criticism entirely. An "educational experience" is not just what comes from books and teachers. That is why I don't consider the city of Berkeley as an escape from the doldrums - rather, it simply adds to character development and all the "extracurricular education" (oxymoron, I know, but it makes sense) that one cannot obtain from sitting in the library doing old practice exams.
ReplyDeleteI can bet you that you'll find a proportionally larger number of miserable students in Engineering departments across the country because of the nature of the material - it's a more difficult field to be successful in overall. The Engineering education at Berkeley is notoriously difficult, but perhaps also why it is so highly regarded. I don't necessarily agree with the system of weeding out and letting the cream rise to the top, but that is Berkeley's (and most public schools') system. Every school has its flaws. Your example really didn't make a whole lot of sense in relation to making your point (that, or you didn't do a good enough job of explaining and clarifying it).
And I don't have to be "Anonymous" like the rest of you if I don't want to. I appreciate your point of view - constructive criticism is always welcome - but please, get off YOUR high horse and stop thinking that you're better just because you're in the majority and you have your army behind you.