Back in October, I wrote an article about why I thought being on co-op was better than being in class. After being on co-op for five months now, I still hold the same opinion, but to my surprise, I’m actually very eager to go back to class for senior year.
There’s no doubt that getting up in the morning, going to a job that I enjoy for the day, and then having the evening to relax is an enjoyable lifestyle. And even though I’ve been doing it for a few months, my enjoyment hasn’t waned. However, there are a number of things that I miss about being in class.
The first, and something that I didn’t really miss until I was away from it for a while, is being in the classroom itself. I know it seems weird, but there is something about a classroom that you can’t find anywhere else. Some are no doubt nicer than others, but they all have the same feel to them, and what’s funny is that I don’t know exactly what that feeling is.
Something else that I miss quite a bit is being among my peers. I still live on campus, so I see and interact with my fellow college students every day, however, it’s not the same as going to a class and seeing the same group of people for 10 weeks straight. Even if you don’t talk to the people in your class, you start to grow this sense of familiarity with them when you see them sitting in the same seat over and over again. It’s weird, but it’s the good kind of weird, and it’s different from walking into your place of work and seeing your co-workers sitting at the same desks every day.
Now, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I also miss homework. Before you call me insane, let me be clear: I only miss the homework that actually benefited me. Being an English major, I have to do an abnormal amount of reading, but a lot of it is quality reading. Sure, there are some that I’ve found to be a snore fest, such as reading a scholarly article or research paper that I just didn’t find interesting or engaging. But I’ve spent a lot of my time as a student reading some stories that have become personal favorites of mine: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” “Dante’s Inferno,” “Dune” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” to name a few. And those are just a handful of the books, there are a ton of short stories and poems I’ve had to read that were also a joy to experience. That’s the kind of homework I miss, not trying to memorize the key points from the chapter of a textbook for a midterm; that type of homework, I never want to see again.
I also miss my professors a lot. I can safely say that I haven’t had one bad professor during my time at Drexel, and I don’t think that many other students can say that, so in that sense, I’m very lucky. Not only did I learn a lot from their classes, but many of them indirectly taught me life lessons that I’ll be able to use in the future. It was always nice to be able to stop by their offices and have a conversation about something that I didn’t understand.
Lastly, I miss the unpredictability of it all. Not knowing if a professor would cancel class on a day for some specific reason was always fun. Or trying to guess how much time an assignment would take me and how difficult or easy it would be. I know some people hate the idea of not knowing, but for me, the uncertainty of classes kept things fresh and interesting. It was as if anything could happen on any given day, but there was always a path forward, it just took some looking to find it.
I only have a few more weeks of co-op before I have to go back to classes for senior year, and I have to admit, I’m super pumped for it. Part of me is also ready to be finished with undergraduate life, but I know that I’ll miss it after it’s all said and done, so I’m planning on enjoying it while it lasts.