If the start of the spring semester has taught me anything, it's that professors never hesitate to assign enough reading to keep me in my room doing homework all week.
Every night of this semester I've had text books, scholarly articles, and online PowerPoints staring at me.
So why do professors assign so much reading?
I have no idea.
I understand reading is a crucial part of learning. I also understand that as a communication major it takes a strong reader to make a strong writer. But it is beyond me why professors think assigning endless pages of reading per night is the ideal way to accomplish their end goals.
For one thing, if I'm enrolled in 6 classes and have 30 pages of reading for at least 3 of those classes on Monday night, I have to read 90 pages. As a slow reader, I can guarantee you that will take up my entire evening if I read closely enough to actually understand and absorb the information in front of me.
For another thing, most days I barely have enough time to eat, let alone sit around for several hours doing homework. When you're a student who has a job and is involved in tons of clubs and groups on campus, you rarely have the time of day to read, even if you want to. Let's not forget that students also need to make time for socializing, working out, and sleeping on top of that.
Most times I pull out my assigned reading at midnight, glance at the first few pages, and then accept defeat. I pray to whatever god may reside above us that my professor won't hand out a pop quiz the next day and will instead actually do their job during class: teach me what the readings were about.
I wish that professors who are 10, 15, or even 40 years removed from college could walk a day in my shoes so they could finally realize that all the readings just stress me out and typically confuse me more than help me, because let's be honest, scholarly articles are horribly written anyway.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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