Redundancy

Warning: this is one of those Age Posts, so if you don't like those, I'd suggest skipping it.

In the multitudes of advisor meetings I had this year, whether that was my honors, scholarship, or major advisor, the question I received the most and which stumped me the most was, "Why?" Why go so fast? Why not take a year off? Or even three or four? To explore, to find yourself?

I couldn't come up with a good answer, more often than not sputtering, "Well...because." Because it's not in my nature? Because I feel prepared to move to the next stage? Because I never regret anything more than wasting time...but apparently that should be treated as some sort of psychological illness. How do you give a convincing, coherent response to a non-question? It's like answering, "So, why is your hair black again?"

I was thinking about this question and how positively inane, superfluous, even, it seemed to me, for one of my secondary essays: "Describe a difficult or challenging situation, how you coped with it, and support persons on whom you relied for advice." But because of my self-imposed ban on writing about anything remotely related to my age (or path, if you will), it was ix-nayed as a topic.

However. I'll definitely have to answer that question in interviews. And actually answer it. In one of my mother's thesis defense presentations (she recently received her doctorate in science education), she talked about the concept of a "spiral curriculum". Using the examples of Russia and India, among other countries, she described how, beginning at a young age, students received an introduction to all of the major science fields--biology, chemistry, physics--and how every year, that knowledge was built upon. So, retreading the same subjects, but always moving upward = spiral. That sounded amazing. I was disappointed with my performance in physics. But at least part of the reason it didn't go well is because I had exactly zero exposure to physics before 1301, taken in my senior year of high school. And on the flip side, how many times through middle and high school did we learn trends of the periodic table, without once touching solution chemistry? (Yes, still bitter about solution chemistry.)

Around the same time, Robin sent out an email about the results of the recent curriculum evaluation of our college. Number five on the suggested improvements stuck out: "Removal of redundancies in molecular biology teaching". Thank you. Half of biochem was a repeat of bio 2003. Half of genetics was a repeat of biochem. I expect half of cell bio to be a repeat of one or more of the above. I can't (fairly) complain about learning the same things in physiology as I have in neuroscience, because obviously not everyone has had those courses. But the molecular bio track is taken by everyone in this college (I think). Shouldn't it be pretty easy to streamline those courses? I was glad to see this reflected in an external review.

Anyway, sometime during essay brainstorming, that word came back to me: "redundancies". Some of the same material is taught over and over and over, whether that's in elementary, middle, high school, or college. You know what that is? Wasted time. That's not a pet peeve. That's a peeve so giant it has its own zoos and restrictions on air travel.

So I finally have an answer to "why". I have an answer to why I entered and left elementary school early, to why I tried my darndest to get out of middle school early, to why I left high school early, to why I think three years in college is more than enough, if used efficiently. Because it's my attempt at stripping away the redundancies, at concentrating a solution that's been diluted for no apparent reason. Because my path is actually normal. It's the "normal" path that's unnatural.

So, um, that was my epiphany.