I sat down in class on the first day of school and I heard a girl behind me murmur, “Do you think we will actually have to do work in this class?” I literally cringed. I wanted to turn around and say “Yeah, its called school,” but I restrained myself.

Everywhere around me I see students who just go through the motions of comprehending material. Too many times have I heard a student say “Is this going to be on the mid-term?” instead of asking a question that engages the professor about the material.

Professors who are not passionate about what they are teaching are even more disappointing than lazy students who only care about grades. It is a waste of time, money, and resources going to a class when you feel no one, including the professor, is investing effort in it.

When I reminisce about courses I’ve taken thus far at Southern Methodist University, the classes that stick out most in my mind are those in which I caught the contagiousness of a professor’s enthusiasm even if it was a subject I wasn’t particularly interested in.

Going to class and actually taking something from it everyday is more difficult than it may seem. At the end of each day, I usually ask myself “What have I learned?” If the answer is nothing, I somehow feel less of a student.

I am here to learn, we all are. There is a sea of knowledge and I feel as if I’ve only gotten my feet wet. A concrete example of the mass amounts of information at our disposal is going into the library. I used to think libraries were intimidating, but I have discovered that libraries are the best resource a university has to offer a student.

I’ve noticed that Meadows School of the Arts has a different aura than the rest of the school. It seems as though the students actually want to be there unlike the drones that I notice around the rest of the campus.

I am not a Meadows student, contrary to what you might think after reading the previous sentence. But somehow I wish there was a way to infuse the attitude I notice in Meadows students to other parts of the university.

So with all this being said, I dare you to go to class engaged and ready to learn, to go to the library and actually check out books, and take classes with some rigor and with professors that actually care about what you retain. You never know when you might learn something, and feel like an actual student.

Emily Ewbank is a sophomore psychology major. She can be contacted at [email protected]