Skipping Class

So I'm skipping class for the first time this semester tonight (my Intro to Lit class). It's funny because I really shouldn't be going because I'm so sick and I've overworked myself so much today, but I feel like such a bad person for skipping. I don't know if it's the teacher in me, the student in me, or the disciplined daughter in me that makes me feel the way that I do, but I just feel terrible skipping class. I feel like I'm wasting the tens of thousands of dollars my parents are spending on my education; I feel like I'm letting myself down by not opening myself to every possible available opportunity to learn and grow. However, it's also difficult, seeing as I don't feel challenged in any of my classes but one (my Shakespeare class) this semester. The other three of my classes are intro level, and I just really don't feel like I'm learning anything. Psychology is interesting, but I've already learned a lot of it in Psych AP last year. I'm not learning anything in sociology seeing as my professor is too smart in the field and thus just rambles on about unimportant things that only vaguely pertain to the class and hardly ever pertain to the tests we take. Although my Intro to Lit professor seems like a sweet guy, the entire class is discussion based, and so when the class isn't interested in the book we're reading or in the class itself, the level of education suffers and I don't end up learning anything about literature except that some people just don't understand it and some people just like talking about how they see themselves in literature. Shakespeare: Sex and Gender is the only class that I really feel challenged in. It's both discussion and lecture based, allowing us to explore our ideas about certain Shakespeare plays but also allowing us to learn from a Shakespeare scholar who has worked with these plays for many years and learned from many other Shakespeare scholars. I feel like I'm accomplishing and growing and learning in that class.

Wow, am I a nerd. I'm definitely not a good college student. I guess I just don't understand people who don't try to learn, try to get the best possible grade that they can and to do the best possible work. We're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in this education. Is it really just to get a certain slip of paper so that we can work in jobs that most of us probably won't end up happy in, or is it to learn from people older, more experienced, and wiser than us so that we can take their knowledge and mold it and apply it to our own lives and the experiences that we see and face every day? I like to think it's the latter, although I know too many people who find it to be the former.

I guess this is something I'll have to battle later on in life in my classroom.