In case some of us have forgotten, Binghamton University happens to be the Premier Public University in the Northeast. How this fact could slip one’s mind is a question that I do not have the answer to. The title is advertised everywhere and is pretty much the only sales pitch admissions feeds to high schoolers. Still, I must assume that the ranking, which doubles as our slogan, is being forgotten by a number of our peers.
Finding myself in a 100-level course which I am taking partially for the “composition” credit, I was shocked to hear that my fellow sophomores who should be used to writing college-level essays, along with freshmen who are now required to take an introductory writing course, were complaining about having to write a three-page rough draft of a book report. How can a student at this school argue, with a straight face, that an ungraded rough draft is too much to be expected of first- and second-year college students? This leads me to believe that some of us at Binghamton have forgotten that being the Premier Public University in the Northeast does, to some extent, require you to write college-level essays at some point during four years here.
While we all get down about how much work we occasionally have, and I do not plan to pretend that I’ve never complained to my friends about coursework, there must be some sort of boundary about how much negativity can be tolerated before complaining about classes just becomes annoying. I cannot imagine that many of us came to Binghamton expecting to breeze through college with the same ease as our local community college. It would seem like most of us here at Binghamton enjoy some aspect of the academic challenge provided to us here and accept the fact that our courses of study will have their grinding moments. But it is for the best that we complete what is required of us by our instructors.
To have students who believe that introductory-level classes should not uphold college-level standards is ridiculous, especially because we are all taking these courses for college credits. Perhaps some students have forgotten the definition of the word “remedial”?
Hopefully we can all find a little bit of restraint in ourselves the next time we’re feeling in the dumps about how much work is being required of us for a certain class. Holding back some negativity and turning that negativity into action to get work done is a policy that could serve some folks well. In the meantime, I have hope that as spring semester moves on and the weather becomes nicer while our days grow warmer, a similar change will be seen in the attitude of some of our peers toward coursework.