pantsfarm

There is nothing new to say here really. I’m just going to spend a little time as I sit here in my “optional review session” lamenting the state of reading period here at the University of Chicago. Basically this is a [tag]whine[/tag].

I don’t really know the history of the reading period here, and so I don’t really have any sort of problem with the fact that it’s only two days. I mean, whatever, good enough for me I guess. I hear the reading periods are much longer at some other schools, and similar at others, I don’t really care.

The thing that bugs me, and I imagine most anybody anywhere about reading period is how much it is routinely encroached upon by exams, paper due dates and “optional” meetings of classes in which there is supposedly no new material covered. Actually I don’t think there is new material covered that often, though sometimes, such as for one of my classes now, the class will be presented with an option of having a meeting during reading period, and then we’ll vote on if there will be allowed new material, and while I believe those jerks lost, if they had won, it would be a mind boggling to me that people actually elected to have another class with new material during reading period.

I’m not really sure what can or should be done about this. I mean, every quarter since my very first here, I’ve been faced with these optional meetings of classes and I’ve missed almost none. Sometimes that decision has proven to be the wrong one, because sleeping just that much more would have been so much nicer, and sometimes, something really genuinely helpful was covered in review and I gained a lot from it. I’m still annoyed at a lot of the things that go on during [tag]reading period[/tag], not the least of which are the early take-home exams and papers that seem to be often due for peopld during this period, but… oh well.