Sit down, open laptop, refresh every fathomable form of social media until you hear the conclusive zipping of backpacks, and leave. It’s systematic and practically a necessity in maintaining consciousness through 100 power point slides, 50 painfully long minutes, and 1 pounding headache brought to you courtesy of your fair-weather amigo, Jose Cuervo. This formula, along with a strategically distant seating arrangement, creates the perfect level of anonymity and apathy necessary to slink through any UF course with minimal effort. That is, if you want an eight digit ID code to define your academic legacy.
For most students, the plan is basic: Get in, get an A, get out. When you’re just a face in the crowd amidst a stadium-sized lecture hall of 300, why even entertain the idea that you give a shit? The entire power point is more than likely on Sakai, you’ll get around to reading the text after a few hours of SVU, and if all else fails you can just pop a pill and head to Study Edge for four course-condensed hours of information. So what’s the point? Why suck up to your archaic instructor when you can get by, virtually unscathed, without ever exchanging a word? Truth be told, you’ll probably get out of microeconomics just fine. However, just fine never got anyone a recommendation.
When your balding, bow-tied professor looks unto a sea of MacBook-luminescent faces, he doesn’t see your personality, quick wit, or debonair way with the ladies. He doesn’t even see your innate genius with numbers. All he sees behind your indifferent expression is the UFID that has been programmed to catalog you with the most debased form of identity possible. You are completely unattributed and honestly, he probably couldn’t pick you out of convict line-up (but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.)
How can he envision anything else? Through is eyes, you would rather add valueless photos of expensive furniture to your “For the Home” board on Pinterest than even appear interested in the information coming out of his mouth.
I’m not saying that you need to prance merrily to the front row or devise an extraneous question for every slide on supply and demand. Let’s be honest, we all hate those kids. I would rather be balls-deep in a season of Arrested Development than straining to keep my eyelids from collapsing in a double block any day. However, I do believe that the importance of establishing effective, student-professor communication is extremely underrated and if neglected, can even detrimental to your future success.
One of the perks of attending such a sizable university is that most of our faculty is top of the line. Whether they are scholar chairs, Pulitzer Prize recipients, or breakthrough researchers in their respective fields, we are lucky enough to have some of the most credible academic administrators available. If you’re struggling with course material, they can almost always give a far better breakdown than Yahoo Answers. If you do have a valid question, ask it.
Another beautifully useful aspect of the UF curriculum is that instructors are required to be available outside of class. Office hours are worth attending every once in a while in order to talk out an comprehensive issue, seek guidance in registering for courses, or just to become familiar with your professor’s work or to appear engaged in their interests. In my opinion, these windows are completely underutilized yet provide ideal opportunities to properly establish yourself as an individual amongst your peers. This isn’t high school. If your grade is wavering on the line between pass and fail and you’ve built correspondence with a professor, they will often throw you a bone. I have had first-hand experience with this scenario and gotten out of jail free a time or two due to this crucial form of networking.
You never know when a potential employer is going to require a letter of recommendation. Depending upon your professor networking history, a glowing review could set you far above other prospects. How do you expect to obtain anything even remotely close to an appraisal if you spent every minute of your collegiate duration on Buzzfeed? Most UF professors are not going to wrack their brains trying to recall your outstanding qualities. Point blank, if they don’t remember you, you aren’t getting jack shit from them. The only way to stand out in the classroom (and in life) is to leave an impression.
When it comes to your approach to taking classes, you have two basic options: You can be a number, or you can be a name. Most of us have similar goals in meeting educational requirements in order to secure diplomas and move on up into the big, bad world. However, the way that you do so is entirely up to you. Hiding behind a glaring screen for an hour and a half isn’t doing anything for you of for future you. If you appear to be engaged, take initiatives in understanding your courses and recognize the benefits of establishing lasting, professional relationships with your educators, you might be surprised by a new found perspective on the value of your education. Survive of thrive. The choice is yours to make.
Photo courtesy of: Diane Gottsman
