Oh there is so much I want to say here, because many things have come up in recent news that I would like to blog about. Yet time doesn't permit it. My bedtime has past, and I must be at work very early in the morning. However, finals are over (though they may bite me still). You will hear from me very soon.
Here's one of my higher rated articles on Helium. Enjoy.
Q. Should collegiate athletes receive payment for competing in college athletics?
A. No.
The first and foremost reason a person should go to college is for an education. At the college I attend, men and women's university sports take up to six hours of practice per day. This leaves little time for studies and social interaction, but it is something they choose. Why? Because they get a full scholarship.
Yet so many feel that an education isn't enough - that there has to be cash money involved for it all to be worthwhile. Suddenly, expense-free education isn't a payment - it's a perk. This issue goes far beyond the actual athletic side of things. This is about cost-benefit ratio between education and money-efficiency.
In many small towns around the U.S., kids are given an ultimatum: either the child does well in sports, gets a scholarship, and goes on to become something better, or the child can stay in the small town and follow in the footsteps of those before him or her. In cities across American, poor children and their families are given the same option. Sports are important - not just because they provide physical activity and social situations, but because so many view them as a ticket out of an undesirable situation.
Making college synonymous with big money isn't a desirable image. It changes the focus of the university, layers doubt on credibility, and destroys the trust amongst students, administration, and athletes. College shouldn't be a business. Paying students for sports devalues the education process and turns the whole thing into halfway house for those moving between high school and professional sports.
Also, where would the money come from? Tuition fees under "Athletic Salary"? Or from taxes? It doesn't make sense to put athletes on payroll for anything other than - at most - a free ride. Let's not forget why all students are meant to go to college to receive. Sliding greenbacks under the table and a diploma over the top isn't going to improve a collegiate experience, and pretending that it really is that way will only seek to demean those serious students, faculty, and administrators forced to go along.
This semester has been rough. Really rough. The marathon paper turned out not so well. "Not so well" means "B+", but it bothered me a lot that what I thought was one of my best papers ended up being... well... not so much. My thesis is defunct, quite officially. I'm looking at three B's if I don't pull up my shoelaces. And... school just sucks in general.
Part of it has to do with the expectations of my professors. I'm not particularly upset that they exist, but I am rather flustered with it on both sides of the coin. My professor's expectations with me are either higher or nonexistent in comparison with my own. One of my professor's teaches a class of twenty people and doesn't know a single one of our names. This same professor apparently didn't notice that about 50% of our class has been missing for the majority of the semester, because he told us that our attendance had been really good. However, my language teacher is constantly pushing and making the students learn. Her expectations are very high, but I feel like this is fair because of how she works with us. On the other hand, another professor uses classtime as a tribute to his own ego (most of our assigned readings have been things he has written). His expectations of me are high, but I don't think it's fair because I always feel like he asks the wrong questions in response to things I write - meaning I think that he has the wrong impression of my paper when he finishes it.
Move on to my thesis tutorial class where there are such high expectations with no direction from any of my superiors, and you've found where the disconnect between school and me begins. I feel pathetic and weak because I'm not able to fight my own discontent and lack of desire to have a fulfilling education this semester, but I also feel like it would be as helpful as punching, kicking, and screaming would be to keeping afloat in the middle of the ocean. So I've decided to tread water while I can.
Not that treading doesn't have its consequences. I've know people who have been doing so since they got to college (and are still doing so afterward). But I feel that my life has become so fast-paced and determined by those outside myself that "treading water" - even for half of one semester - is a euphemism for "drowning." The dates pass me by, the times hit me in the face, the people pull me down. I've put myself into this position, and I'm not complaining that I've done so, per se. I enjoy my responsibilities and I have a desire to do my duties. But I also feel like I've allowed myself to be tied and gagged without possibility of escape for a future I'm not even sure of yet. Are my sacrifices of self too great? Have I done too much? Or am I just too lazy? I don't quite know that, but I do know that I still feel compelled to do what I've promised to do, and that I love being able to offer my services at their demand. I really think my lack of motivation is a byproduct of a really rough semester. And you know what they say about rough times?
This too shall pass.
...or at least it better. I've got a year and a half left.
