COLUMN: Take your requirement medicine, and smile

From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99 From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '99It took a while for me to really accept the fact that I'm not Felicity. Unlike Keri Russell, my dorm room isn't the size of small island in the Bahamas, my sweaters aren't crunchy enough to be hip and I can't cock my head to the side in a pensive and deliberative way that makes men want to kiss me. No matter how intelligent the Penn student, each person dreads certain requirements like they dread incurable flesh-eating diseases. To the English major it's Formal Reasoning. To the Engineering student, it's the writing requirement. To a Bio major, it's Arts and Letters. But there is a way out. It is one of the first things students learn within moments of arriving on campus. That one in three Penn students owns a North Face jacket. That if you don't own a North Face jacket you definitely own a peacoat. And that it's very easy to live on academic easy street. There's never any problem with overflow housing there. The journey to Penn and the journey within Penn create an interesting paradox. Students work hard in high school, taking whatever AP courses are necessary to make their college applications more attractive than their friend's applications. Students are constantly competing to get good grades so that they can eventually make it into the esteemed Ivy League (enter cherubs and angels singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" stage right). But once students arrive at Penn, their work ethic gets lost in the backwash of their social lives and extracurricular activities. As requirements for majors grow more complicated, schedules more intense and workloads larger, the push to take a rigorous non-major requirement course grows non-existent. Students are seduced by the idea of an easy course that fills a requirement. Should the English major take the easy math course to "get the requirement over with" or take something more challenging but also more interesting? Should the Engineering student take an English class that focuses on books she read in high school, or should she take something new? Should the Bio major take a "fluff" course to avoid something too difficult or take the time to actually learn some history? I, too, have been tempted by the serpentine wiles of Penn's course guide. Math 170 and I locked eyes. Before I knew it I was enrolled in the class and learning about the most effective ways to cut a cake equally -- which, although useful, was not something I needed to learn at the university level. (Though I've never cut cake better in my life since taking the course.) This semester, I decided to turn my head away from the seductive easy courses and fill a requirement the "hard way." I won't lie to all of you. I'm taking a course that I will probably not do well in. I will struggle with my homework. I will talk to my TA who can't speak English and I will attempt to learn Russian in a desperate attempt to understand him. I will lose nights of sleep over this course. And the final result will not be an A. I'm going to exert a whole lot of effort to only do "eh." And that's OK. Because the world won't end if you don't get the best grades your whole life. Although you may feel as if you're getting your undergraduate degree only as a vehicle to take you to grad school, there's a lot to be learned along the way. If you take courses about cutting cake you'll miss out on learning new things that you'll never have the opportunity to study again. Because they don't teach "The Whodunit from Oedipus to Columbo," "Biological Psychology of Motivation" or "Observational Astronomy" in law school. The Real World isn't about living in other peoples mansions. The rent may be cheap on academic easy street but challenging yourself is the only true way to Felicity.