Nearing the last third of my first semester at Rutgers, I would like to reflect upon the academic environment that I have experienced here so far. Because Rutgers had thousands of students studying across its campuses, there is bound to be a high level of competition amongst the hundreds of students in each school of study.
As a first-semester freshman I have seen some versions of this competition in my day to day life. For instance, I have seen people rushing to take opportunities sent to us through email, responding with a sense of urgency. I have also seen others beefing up their resume to be able to compete with their peers when It comes to graduate school, applying for jobs and internships, etc.
One of the worst instances of competition I have seen is in a place that is not so surprising; the Honors College. The Honors College Forum, a mandatory class for all Honors College students in their freshman year is a class promoting social innovation and critical thinking. The class includes the composure of three essays which are all based on the creation of a unique, innovative social business that tackles one of the world's sustainable development goals (SDG).
Because the class requires a lot of critical thinking it is often difficult for many students, which results in them getting lower grades than they would normally expect. The lower grades cause students to seek any way to do better, and one way they can do this is through extra credit. Writing workshops are held for each essay, and course directors have mandated that attendance of 5 workshops can give students extra credit in the course. Many students, wanting to take advantage of this opportunity, started going to the workshops, which became increasingly full, creating a distracting learning environment. The workshops started getting capped at 15 students a first come first serve basis. This resulted in students lining up outside the workshop room several hours before, pushing and shoving to get their name on the sign-in sheet so they could get the extra credit. This toxic level of competition amongst students to do better essentially results in them only caring about the grade rather than learning. I believe that this competitive environment should be dissolved because in the end, it is bad for both students and teachers.
