I was a senior once. Well, twice, actually. I don't really remember the high school bit. I couldn't tell you the classes I took, or what I was proud of doing, or anything. But I do remember being a college senior. Because, in part, I remember other people being college seniors before me.
I was involved in the college radio station and so I hung out with people from classes way above my own. And they were suddenly terribly antisocial in the spring of their senior years. It was really upsetting -- here I thought we had been friends (or at least one of them wasn't terribly rude at the fact I had a crush on him and liked to hang out with him). And suddenly no one was friendly any more. They were cranky and even worse. They didn't want to talk to anyone who was just being friendly, etc.
Then I was a senior. And I understood. In the midst of my panic to get my thesis revised and printed, I got mad at the underclass(wo)men who didn't understand how important it was to set out tables and chairs for the garden party on time. They didn't understand how I could overreact so badly to a harmless joke, and would be furious when a professor wasn't there unless I had made an appointment. I would stand outside the locked door to their office suites and knock and knock but no one heard me, and then I would leave to go to class, and see them in the department office on my way past and be absolutely furious in my own brain (never said anything rude to them, but felt anger and now that I think about it that was probably doing my blood pressure no good. But on the other hand, I was taking horse tranquilizers the clinic was handing out as flavour of the month and so my blood pressure wasn't going to be that high, and ... Where was I?
Oh, seniors.
I am teaching two upper-level classes with a significant number of graduating seniors in them this semester. And I am once again seeing the senior stress level from the other side of the desk, so to speak. I have students who want extensions but not long ones, but also want me to understand that they couldn't come to this class because their major project was taking up so much time, or they had an appointment with the major professor which could only take place during the class itself. Their papers won't be that good -- I hope you understand, because this isn't my major, or my capstone, or whatever.
To be perfectly honest, I do understand. I am really in favour of students triaging what they want to do in a given semester, or a given class. I know that my classes are not going to be the top priority for most students (on the other hand, even if you don't "need" it for your major, if it is the highest numbered class in your major you will ever have taken, and you plan on going on to grad school, it might be a bad idea to blow off attendance for weeks at a time, particularly when it is a discussion-based class and you are given a class attendance/participation mark that is a full letter grade's worth of the final mark). I actually cheer on students who are not really focusing on this material, but took it because they always wanted to study x or y, and this was their last chance. I often suggest arranging for such a class to be a pass/fail grade rather than a letter grade. That way the fun component of the class and the material will be more likely to carry them through the semester's workload and things can be skipped if absolutely necessary.
And I have great admiration for many of my students who have obligations outside the classroom -- are running galleries in town, raising a child (or two!), taking care of a parent or spouse who is ill, or working almost a full-time job while finishing up school. However, I have an obligation to the class and to the other students in the class to evaluate everyone's contribution fairly and for me that means equally. I know that stress is present in all levels of college, often much more than I had as an undergrad (although severe eyestrain, which I had periodically from age 16 to 23, can be pretty incapacitating, both in terms of headaches and ability to see). But I cannot waive requirements without extreme circumstances (the student who arranged an end-of-term party at which a student who couldn't swim decided he would get in the water and felt horribly responsible, the one whose father had a heart attack the morning of the exam and couldn't think straight -- those were pretty good reasons for leniency). And you don't want there to be extreme circumstances.
I know illness, too, and have seen the mono and stomach flu and strep throat circulating among the students as well. I can give some leeway if a student has been responsibly coming to class and has been prepared all the way along. If you are a senior, you know how important attendance is, both because attendance allows you to get all the content (or at least more of it) than you could get just from books, and also because it shows interest which cannot hurt your relationship with the professor. The first thing I do when someone asks for an extension is to see how reliably he or she has come to class (we were required to take attendance a few years ago with the Swine Flu scare, and I have kept at it since) and how well he or she has performed on quizzes (which shows regular involvement in learning the content). Seniors are (or at least should be) more sophisticated in attendance issues, and better at time management. And generally they are. But those who aren't often are those who really fall apart in the spring. Sometimes the situation is so bad that someone who planned on graduating in May is not able to do so. I feel bad about that, but I will help if help is needed, just will not change the requirements because they are inconvenient.
The maturity and responsibility that is acquired over the four years (or five) of college is impressive. The seniors are difficult to lose. The ones who have worked in my office for several years or have taken classes with me in a wide variety of disciplines, the ones who have traveled abroad with me, or who spent hours in my office trying to work out a particularly complicated written argument, or deciding what courses to take, these are the people I miss. I like teaching undergrads a great deal because this is the time of greatest growth in intellectual problem solving ability. By the junior year usually it is as if the mental framework has kicked in and a student knows suddenly how to make connections across disciplines, how to frame and answer questions, and why writing well is relevant to doing well in classes and life in general. After that we have them for one to two years, and they graduate. And we miss them terribly.
I am in contact with several graduated students, and Facebook has helped that dramatically. I know when someone has won an award or gotten a scholarship or published an article, because either he posts it or his wife or their friend mentions it. I see when a former student is enjoying his or her job and what it is (sometimes it has nothing to do with what classes were taken as an undergrad). I know when someone is thinking about going back to school, or has had a baby, or has published a book. Those kinds of things make me very happy.
So as you head into your last few weeks of classes and think ahead to graduation, seniors, know that I have sympathy for your stress, an understanding of the fear of not knowing exactly what happens next, the desire to stay in a situation where you are comfortable, and compassion for your horrible horrible workload. But remember, these are the choices you have made when signing up for a class or a major, and getting through this forest of despair and distraction will get you a diploma. Hang in there, and study for the final!
I'll see you at graduation. Or on Facebook after you walk across that stage for the diploma.
