Remember to Forget

Everyone knows a college degree is a good thing. It earns you thousands more per year. It brings you to a new level of esteem and respect. It helps your resume sparkle so a potential boss can fish it out from the pool of general applicants. (Which, in an economy like today's, usually includes everyone you've ever met and everyone each of them has ever met. Not great chances.) Lastly, and more importantly, a college degree boosts your overall intelligence and provides you with the interdisciplinary, well-rounded education every hard-working citizen deserves.

Or so they would have you believe.

A few days ago, I decided to do some spring cleaning. Having perfected the art of denial years ago, I easily turned a blind eye to the clothes covering every inch of my bedroom floor. I went instead for the desk drawers. For whatever reason, I'd held onto an astonishing amount of paperwork since graduating college. I figured now was as good a time as any to get rid of this junk.

Two hours later, I was cross-legged on my carpet, staring in disbelief at the piles of paper surrounding me. It wasn't the amount of papers that overwhelmed me; it was what was written on them.

Biology labs, Art History notes, World History study guides. At one point in the not-so-distant past, I had actually understood this information and excelled every time I was tested on it. Looking at them now, I could have sworn they were written in Portuguese. I might as well have just stumbled upon the Dead Sea Scrolls or a series of hieroglyphics. Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look at an actual question on one of my Geology exams from junior year:

Sure, absolutely. As I have so clearly articulated in my diagram here, the volcanic continental arc is in a constant state of conversion as the oceanic plate subducts down from atop the Benioff - No, wait. WHAT?! If my hand drew this, which it appears to have done, I must've been possessed. Or more likely, just doing exactly what college taught me to do.

In order to succeed as a college student, I had to accept the challenge of faking understanding long enough to get an A. I would show up to class, take immaculate notes, then go home and stuff the information into my brain by any means necessary. Rote memorization and repetition were familiar processes. Pneumonic devices were my best friends. Then once I had it, I'd hold it hold it hold it until test day when I could spit it all back out, releasing it forever.

I get it. All things considered, there really is no other way to teach to a lecture hall of 300 students. What are the professors gonna do? Take each kid out and present a tailored lesson to them over brunch at Panera Bread? No, they're gonna read off PowerPoints, flash transparencies, then give a few Scantron tests and a final exam so the students can pass the class and the teachers can cover their ass.

It's amazing what your brain can retain for a few days at a time. I once correctly labeled every country in the world. EVERY country.... in the WORLD. Now I'd be lucky if I could find North America on a globe.

And yet, those four years were far from a waste. I still have the pride of knowing I worked hard to achieve success. Even if I've lost 90% of what I learned, the A's on my transcript are proof that at one point in time I wasn't a complete idiot.