What I want to change about Uni.

I would love to change Uni’s academic culture. By that, I mean how we talk about and handle grades, tests, presentations, etc. I think as a senior applying to college I see very often this unhealthy view of how we need to prepare and act around academics. It’s no secret that Uni students are stressed but, as Dr. Majerus pointed out to our utopias and dystopias class, there is healthy stress and unhealthy stress. Healthy stress is the stuff that motivates us and makes us do our best, the butterflies in our stomach before a game or performance that help us work hard. Unhealthy stress is the stuff that makes us lose sleep at night, set unrealistic goals, and overall leave us unhappy. I see a lot of the latter here. At Uni there has always been a big element of comparing grades, you knew who were the smart kids in your grade for each subject since subbie year and they would seem as if they were on another, unattainable level. Even in the application process to get into Uni, among the people I knew you were pretty much defined by your SSAT score, even though essays were heavily taken into account, all that mattered to the other kids was the score. Don’t get me wrong I am happy where I am happy at Uni, but I have never once felt like the smartest person in the room (not that it matters or can truly be quantified), I’ve honestly never felt in the top 10 even. And I know I am not the only one to feel this way. I believe there is validity to the side of the argument that says you need people better than you to push you, however, I believe that this needs to be complemented with a culture that promotes you to believe you can do what you want. I never felt that if I studied all night I would be as smart as someone else, I always felt like I was just born more stupid.


I think this also ties into the conversation about what being “smart” even means. I don’t think someone's level of intelligence solely relies on test scores or grades, despite what we seem to hear everywhere. When you are considering a college the first thing you look into is average acceptance rate depending on GPA and SAT/ACT scores even though we have to write essays we sort of get the notion that unless you have a lot going for you if your numbers aren’t high enough you’re not going to get in. I personally believe the largest indicator of intelligence is critical thinking but we can save that for another blog post. I think throughout the years at Uni I have noticed a change there is less direct asking about grades and scores yet there is still a large percent of the student body who compares themselves. This is a dangerous mentality, often it doesn't prepare you for inevitable failure in life. If you define yourself by the number of A’s you have you are setting yourself up for hurt. There is an element of pushing yourself to your best but at what cost.





As much as I had to complain about something without trying to provide a solution, I am really not sure what to do about this. In my Utopias and Dystopias English class last year we talked extensively and voted on the idea of not using grades and just going to a pass or fail system. Although this sounded cool when everyone learned it wouldn’t positively affect our GPA’s we voted against that and decided to remain with the usual grading system. Even if Uni was to stop using grades I am not sure that would help. Once we apply to college we would need to prove ourselves to that school through more tests and even more pressure on those tests. I guess this indicates that this issue is way beyond Uni. Even if we didn’t have grades teachers would still have to mark if we made an error and I think you would still find us comparing ourselves in some other way. There definitely does need to be less emphasis on defining yourself by your grades. Feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments.

Fun Times with Fun Friends

This photo was taken on self-timer on July 20th, 2019 in Custard Cup at 10:30 pm. This was after we had met around 5:30 for dinner at Olive Garden, because who doesn’t love pasta, and after we had walked around TJ Maxx for a good hour and a half. TJ Maxx is where we made the wonderful purchase of matching yellow hoodies with the words “DAYDREAMER” on them.

Originally the night had started out with just the plan to see each other and eat some dinner. We all met at Olive Garden, I was super excited because these were some of my favorite people and I hadn’t seen them as much as I wanted over summer. Gloria and Kat had both just graduated and were getting ready for college, which meant I wouldn’t get to see them every day in the Uni halls, so I knew this might be one of the last time we all got together and had a good time for a while. We eventually all arrived to olive garden and were catching each other up on how our summers had been thus far and what was new. As soon as the waiter walked over we immediately asked for as many breadsticks as we could have (He only brought one basket the first time but eventually caved and started bringing us more). Part of the reason I love these people is that I rarely talk to them without ending up crying laughing, and that's great. When we were ready to order Kristine asked if the dessert lasagna with layers of chocolate cake and frosting had noodles in it. This led to everyone laughing uncontrollably and barely being able to order our food. After spending a few hours talking and eating we decided we were going to go to TJ Maxx since it was just across the parking lot from Olive Garden. We all started our TJ Maxx trip by cramming into the bathroom because pretty much everyone needed to pee. We made our way slowly through the aisles of the store picking a lot of items up even though we knew we weren’t going to buy them. When we got out of the clothes sections and more into the decoration stuff we just went crazy. Kat and Glo were sitting in the middle of the aisle with planners all around them trying to figure which one to get Samaia, Kristine and I all split up and almost every 30 seconds would call out someone's name so we could find each other.

As we were on our way to check out a couple of things each of us grabbed we came across these intense yellow hoodies in the middle of the men's section. At first, we saw 2 or 3 and thought it would be fun to put them on and see how they looked but we slowly realized there were enough for all of us and we all found sizes that worked for us. It seemed like the perfect thing to symbolize and remember the night. It’s hard to say if we would have bought them had we not been full with pasta and walking around TJ Maxx for over an hour. We all bought them and put them on. To end the night we decided to go to Custard cup and get some ice cream in our matching hoodies. As we waited in line we got plenty of stares someone asked if we were all from someday camp, to which we replied no, we are just great friends. After finishing our ice cream we decided we needed photos to remember this night. We refused to let anyone take them for us, we insisted on using the self-timer. We took so many photos and everyone had me laughing so hard, we were taking photos for like 20 or 30 mins. This photo is my favorite just because everyone is doing something funny and weird. You got Kat super enthusiastic with her leg in the air, Kristine not ready for the photo still trying to tie her hoodie, me fighting air, Samaia representing the mental state we were all in, and who knows what Gloria was dong. Every time I see all the photos we took in my camera roll or see the hoodie in my closet I smile and am reminded of the great friends I have. :)