February 1, 2017 - 22:58
Today in class, we discussed a lot about the systems that make an institution run: more specifically, we discussed the "ought to be" and how the personal "ought to be" differs from what an institution might think. While others seemed to focus on privledge and where they came from, I started to consider how the rules of Bryn Mawr (the requirements which each student is expected to complete) could impact myself and others. It seems that this is part of the liberal arts "ought to be;" a belief that a rounded education, where students must complete many disciplines, is more valuable than study only in one area. While I came to college believing in this, and beliving in the idealistic praising of liberal arts styles, I now believe that this is not totally achievable in real life.
My "ought to be-" what I thought I should be able to acheive, was simply impossible by Bryn Mawr standards. I failed at math classes and did poorly in languages while my english, arts, and education grades soared. The idea of sucess- how I was supposed to be graded- made me look worse than I was because I could not obtain idealistic ideas of student goals. However, to suceed within the structure that is our college, I must. I tried to resist that, but it was hard when there was nothing but an elaborate series of hoops to jump through and endless rules to navigate. What started as a simple attempt to get an accomodation for a math/language requirement quickly became nearly impossible.
This took me a year of meetings with deans, evaluations with a child psychologist, therapist visits, written proposals, dropped classes, tons of stress and tears, missed work, and arguments with professors. It seemed to me that a system made to help learning had somehow failed: as soon as an alternative brain (which eventually was proved to be unable to process foreign languages/math correctly) was presented, the system shut down. I didn't fit what I was supposed to be, and I couldn't mold myself to it.