College Expectations
Urban legends can be found all throughout
our society. One of the reasons why
they are so prevalent in our society is
because they are focused on topics that
play key roles in our lives. There
are urban legends that are filled with
horror, anxiety, sadness, humor,
etc... but most of all they prove to teach
valuable lessons. These lessons
are known to come across so clearly, simply due
to the manner in which they
are presented. Legends are always supposed to be
told in a convincing manner
no mater how suspect their actual plot seems to be.
One of the most
common as well as appealing types of legends is the college
legend. In
college legends there are several reoccurring themes that are
shared.
Several of these themes are related to exams and trying to pass
by any means
necessary. There are numbers of different legends that involve
students trying
to out smart their professors. Sometimes they win and
sometimes they don't,
which is what creates the entertainment value of these
stories. There are many
reasons for these legends, one being that going away
to school is a huge step in
one's maturation and strive towards independence
which can be portrayed
accurately through college legends. This creates a
great deal of anxiety and
doubt that may overcome students attending school
away from home. Which is why
these legends are so important and why they have
been around for so long. Most
of all it's the college freshman who gets hit
hardest with these apprehensions
and uncertainties. While researching college
legends I came across a legend by
the name of "flunk me if you can". This
legend tells a tale of a
college student taking his final exam. He, like many
other students, is having
trouble finishing within the allotted time. He had
so much trouble in fact that
he continued to write for at least five minutes
after the professor announced
"pencils down". The teacher, tired of waiting
begins to collect his
things along with the other student's papers and begins
to leave to room. The
student realizes this and rushes over to the teacher to
hand his paper in. The
teacher in turn refuses to accept the paper due to the
fact that the student has
violated the academic code by continuing to write
after time was called. The
student then asked the teacher whether or not he
knew his name. The teacher
replied no, but that he would after he recorded
the student's failing grade. The
student then proceeded to knock the other
completed tests out of the teacher's
hands and mixed his exam in with the
rest. Immediately after he ran out of the
room. So as the story goes, the
student ended up getting a B+. This legend plays
upon some very important
anxieties that almost all college students face, one
being the importance of
passing final exams, which I believe to be a universal
aspect of any
student's life. Another aspect of college that this legend plays
on is the
factor of time. Time plays a huge role in college, typically it is a
matter
of balancing your studying and social life, quickly finding out
especially as
a freshman that no one is going to do it for you. This is why many
freshmen
have difficulty adjusting to college because they are now entitled with
an
enormous amount of freedom. Anonymity is another aspect of college
that
legends play against. The fact is that if you are in a crowded lecture
hall of
100 students or more, the odds are that the teacher doesn't know
who you are.
This is very unlike the way that most high school settings
are. In high school
you have the ability to have a personal understanding
with your teachers. This
is another reason why I found this legend to be so
appealing to college
freshman. Also for most freshman or for that matter any
student there is a great
sense of powerlessness when faced with academic
regulations and unyielding
professors. There are several other legends that I
came across over the Internet
that deal with exams and students struggle with
budgeting time. One legend
involved a student taking his final exam and it
turns out that he only knew the
answer to one of the two questions that he
had to respond to. So, after some
quick thinking he decided to pretend that
his first exam booklet was lost by the
professor. He accomplished this by
writing several closing sentences on the top
of his second booklet pretending
to conclude the first question that he never
answered. He then proceeded to
fully answer the second question, the one that he
originally knew. After
responding to the second question he only handed in that
book. Later he
receives the exam back with his single book, attached is his
grade "A" and an
apology note from the professor for loosing his first
book. In this legend
the student wins but there are also other legends that
devious students
trying to cheat there way out of exams loose to an all too wise
professor. A
legend where the professor catches the students for trying to
deceive him
involves two students who overslept their Monday morning exam. They
then went
to the teacher and told him that they went away for the weekend and
on
Sunday night while driving home they got a flat tire and became
stranded for the
rest of the night, therefore they missed the exam. The
teacher gave them the
benefit of the doubt and let them take a make up exam.
The students were placed
in different rooms with the same test. The teacher
suspected that the students
might have been misleading him and therefore on
the exam asked only two
questions. The first question was relatively easily
but was only worth five
points, the second stated "which tire?" this question
was worth the
remaining ninety-five points. So there are legends where in the
student over
comes through craftiness but there are also cases where the all
too wise
professor prevails. Both of these legends shared common themes. The
two main
themes were time and the fear of failing final exams. In the first
tale the
student is forced to take a risk in attempting to trick his
professor, in fear
that he will fail his final exam which may prove to ruin
his academic standing
and potential success in the future. Time is also an
issue in this legend, it
isn't mentioned but I speculate that the reason for
the student not knowing the
other answer. The student most likely didn't
spend enough time studying and
balancing the rest of his commitments. In the
second legend the students problem
was that they overslept and missed the
exam, which represents a scarcity of
time. Time management is one of the
biggest downfalls of freshmen college
students. In the article entitled
"Freshman Year" this idea is one of
the center aspects. This problem was not
only recognized by the author, but in
almost all of the students interviews
this same issues arose. As depicted on a
chart of 237 surveyed freshmen
thirty percent admitted that adjustment was the
most pertinent problem that
they faced. In my experience so far I find this
percentage to be low if
anything, I've been here for about three weeks and I'm
still not by any means
completely settled. This article is filled with factual
information and
statistics as well as personal accounts from students that cover
the same
themes that the majority of college legends entail. Urban legends are
great
tools to uncover certain characteristics of a society, and the culture
in
which they exist. College legends even though they are a more specific
class of
legends they still encompass several aspects of college life, at
it's worst and
best. Legends that deal with particular topics for instance
exams almost always
have the same type of message. This message is a fairly
accurate picture of some
of the anxieties that occur in students. One of the
most powerful fixed
resources that exists is time, and if you ask any college
student they will
definitely agree with you. This is why so many legends play
on this factor in
order to create more entertaining legends. Even in the
article "Freshman
Year" one of the main focuses is time management,
simply because it is such
a large issue. All three of the legends that I
wrote about are all centered
around time and the anxieties of exams and the
correlation between the two.
College legends are one of the keys to
interpreting and understanding anxieties
that surround freshmen.