A primary source of stress in our lives is change in our surroundings and our experiences. Some of this change is beyond our control; some is not. The change and resultant stress over which we exert some control is at least partially dependent on our own choice-making and decisions. For example, going off to college is for most students a kind of change in experience about which there was some opportunity for personal decision-making. You did have a choice didn't you? OK, even if you are quick to respond that you didn't, when you slow down and go to a deeper, more fundamental level of the question, didn't you really have a choice? Most of us do have much more opportunity to exercise choice than we are often willing to acknowledge.
Many year ago, Abraham Maslow, a famous psychologists who studied the nature of human motivation identified two clearly distinct patterns of individual choice-making that humans can become equally comfortable with in their lives. "Bad choosers" were those who regularly and thus predictably opted for familiar paths and options. They kept their stress to a minimum, but not without some consequent cost--they "grew" as people more slowly than they might have otherwise or not at all. In contrast, what Maslow termed "good choosers" predictably opted for options and choices that were less familiar, comfortable, and secure. But the payoff was that their choices often led to new growth and expansion of the self.
One might paraphrase Zorba and say that "College is stress, only not being there is not." This is a time for making choices--both big ones and small ones. But one must exercise caution because sometimes what are thought to be small, insignificant decisions reveal themselves later as much more profound than initially thought, and at other times a series of what are genuinely small decisions of little individual consequence cumulate to have an impact larger than they would alone.
Awareness of these realities overwhelms some students and they seek escape from the discomfort of their stress by avoiding the decision-making situations that their lives require. But what any good existential philosopher will tell you is that we can never do nothing--even when we are engaged in actions that avoid or postpone particular decisions, we have in fact already made a decision that is reflected by our avoidant behavior. Thus, we are making choices even when we think that we are making no choices and avoiding a choice that seems to us unpleasant or premature (i.e., we don't see ourselves as being "ready" for it yet).
The "Default" Course Structure:
Why all of this talk about choice? I offer you two paths in this course, and in doing so I place with you some responsibility (and additional stress) for your educational outcomes. In my syllabus you will find a detailed description of a framework for this course within which you may choose to work and be evaluated. I call this the "default" path--it is the framework under which a student will work and be evaluated if he/she does not submit a proposal for an alternative path that is acceptable to the course instructor. This default path focuses upon a streamlined, minimum frills approach to mastering the course content (primarily reading and study of the course notes, text, and other readings) with periodic assessment and evaluation of learning via objective tests (viz., multiple choice or true/false questions). Clearly, under this course structure, your task is largely one of simply mastering the body of knowledge represented in the course assignments and classroom activities well enough that your testing performance will be evaluated at or above the final course letter grade level that you desire.
A student might elect this path for any of a variety of reasons, some better than others. For example, a student might be satisfied that this approach (viz., assimilating assigned material and then taking an objective test on it) is a good way of learning and produces a good kind of learning that works for her/him. Some students may be uncertain about the work demands in their other classes and want to avoid overextending themselves by pulling out the stops in all courses. Some students may have already decided to their satisfaction that their core interests lie in other directions, or they may be in the course only because they have to complete a distribution requirement or an elective. Some students, especially in an introductory course, may think they have an interest in finding out more about psychology, but they don't want to be too eager to try customizing and individualizing their learning until they know more. Others may have already concluded that it's who you know rather than what you know that determines a successful life and that either they already have the requisite contacts they will need or they will manage to make them before they are needed. For whatever reasons students are welcome to opt to stay with the default course structure at absolutely no penalty to my evaluation of them for a course grade. I wouldn't offer this option if I did not consider it an acceptable one that exceeds minimal requirements. It may represent a path with less of certain kinds of work, but it will still be plenty rigorous and demanding for many students.
The Path(s) Less Frequently Travelled:
Now, for the other path--or shall I say the other collection of many possible paths. At any point in the course before the deadline for Personal Project proposals that is indicated late in the semester in the syllabus, any student or group of students working together may submit a written proposal to alter their mix of learning activities for the portion of the semester that remains and thereby alter the role/weight of the remaining objective tests in their evaluation. (One or more office consultations with me should almost certainly be included as part of your preparation of any draft proposal.) For emphasis and clarity let me point out that you may not reduce the weight of any of the objective test(s) that you take before the approval of your proposal, nor may you propose to exempt yourself from any future exams by having their weightings in your course grade reduced to zero percent. But, if there is sufficient challenge and ambitiousness suggested by the alternative tasks (e.g., term papers, observational projects in the field or lab research activities, preparation of topical presentations to the class, etc.) described in a proposal for more personalized learning, substantial reductions in the weightings of exams may be included as part of the proposal. (Click here for Personal Project guidelines.)
As with the default path, any of the many learning paths that this option offers might also be chosen for a variety of reasons, but those reasons are more likely positive ones since additional work is clearly required by the student to develop this option and experience its benefits. For example, a student may feel that she/he does not test well with objective tests and that another way is needed to better demonstrate her/his learning. Or a student may have a special interest in the general subject matter of the course or some specific aspect of the subject matter and want to explore some particular topics with a narrower focus and at greater depth. A student with a real or potential interest in having a career in psychology may want to give greater emphasis to the acquisition of certain skills that are required of practitioners of the discipline while he/she also works to master the course's content. This student might desire a more hands-on, research-like experience that allows interaction with subjects or data-gathering or exploration of some topic thoroughly while having that effort recognized and credited in their course grade. This student or similar ones might also be already thinking about the possibility of graduate study after receiving their undergraduate degree. Such students might want to take this path hoping to distinguish themselves in the classroom by demonstrating the creativity and independence of their approach to learning, the depth of their commitment to the discipline as a possible career path, or their ability to engage in self-directed learning at a high level of maturity and responsibility. Students who successfully set themselves apart thusly are students for whom it is easy to make distincive, specific, and very positive comments of support for their admission to advanced study or their application for the best employment opportunities.
All of this should not be construed to suggest that I cannot or will not make positive recommendations and statements of support for students who have taken the default path--only that unless such a student has performed with truly exceptional distinction on exam performance or classroom activities my comments must necessarily be far less informed and detailed. I can say that such a student performed well enough on my exams and occasionally gave classroom evidence of being prepared and engaged, but the "texture" of their intellectual involvement with me and my course will obviously have been less rich and complex and will necessarily limit what I can say about them.
So there it is. Maybe it is more who you know than what you know. Time will have a way of telling you. But already you are and you will continue to be making choices about a future that has not yet arrived--that probably seems to you as hardly on the distant horizon. And you will be making choices that reflect what you think the answers to such questions are even if you think that you are refraining for the moment from giving your own answers. I hope you make the ones that are right--for most, the first day after graduation from DePauw will provide incomplete, sometimes fallible, yet significant, feedback as to whether a path has been chosen to McJob or to something else?