Urban Legends as an Alternative Lens for Viewing the College Classroom Experience - Essay Example

Exam Scams and room Flimflams: Urban Legends as an Alternative Lens for Viewing the CollegeClassroom Experience The prevailing culture in higher education institutions is majorly constructed under the influence of campus related legends. After hearing the story of my brother’s friend, I went on to write an article about how college legends help students to overcome the issues they face and tackle situations that have a deep impact on their performance of the students. This paper is a response to my personal experience of how legends associated with college campuses influence the academic experiences and life of students at the college campus. These experiences and live events I saw in college life helped me to learn skills that are beneficial for my professional and personal life. For studying the said topic, Claire Howell used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research work in order to collect evaluate and interpret legends identified during the research work. Legends associated with college life are found to be deeply influencing on the life and attitude of new students. Majority of the time, students have expressed that their experience is negative, though there are students who are of the view that college life helped them to be strong and logical in their reasoning and arguments. The best way to learn positivity from college experiences is to take events and situations as simple, and not let them ruin the motivation level and strength to complete studies successfully. On the other hand, it is also proven that events and scenarios faced by students in their college life leave a long lasting impact on students’ life and they haunt student even after 10 or 20 years of completing their education at the college level. As a result, students not only face anxiety and fear of unknown during their college life, but the life after college as well. I went to receive higher education in a college in Tuscaloosa. Well before I was due to report to the college principal for joining, I started feeling anxiety and fear of unknown. At the same time, I was excited and thrilled about the start of a new phase in my life. Things, which haunted me before joining college, were ragging of fresh students by senior students, assignment submission, classroom taunts, girls’ politics and other legends associated with urban educational institutions. When I arrived at the college on my first day, I experienced first of the legends associated with college life, i.e. I had to report to the principal and answer his/her pinching questions about my past and myself. As soon as I reported to the principal and completed the background investigation, I moved on to look at the dorm arrangement my parents made. When I entered into my room at the dorm, I saw another student lying on the other bed studying the college prospectus. I did not know whom she is and what is her name, but I did not waste time in carrying out a thorough background check on her. Already with headache due to the time spent in principal’s office, I forgot about introducing myself to her and started to unpack my clothes and other accessories that I brought from home. This story was not limited to this room, but in every room, students were busy in learning about the college and settling down. This hectic schedule and occurrence of events does not let the new students learn about other students of the college, including fresh and senior students. In my opinion, I experienced negativity when I reached college and got hold of my rom in the dorm, was largely the resultant of legends I already heard about college life. Otherwise, everything went normal and suiting the settling style of any human being. Therefore, it can be asserted that an individual’s experiences of life events and scenarios is different from other individuals, because we build our perception about life after listening to what other individuals in our social circle, family and spouse have to say about it. Even our actions towards certain events and scenarios are based on what we have learned from others’ similar experiences. It is eminent, that the influence of these associated stories and legends with college life are most of the time negative, as the new students believe on these stories even before experiencing the college life. That is why; these legends and stories create a sense of urgency and anxiety amongst freshmen. Thus, it can be suggested that the new students can make their life easier and pleasant while studying at college, by not believing urban legends associated with college life, instead they should wait to experience this life themselves and then evaluate the difference between their personal experience and legends. Claire Major stated, “While these shared representations have an element in truth and provide us with a different perspective on the enterprise of higher education, they also serve to reinforce stereotypes and misinformation” (Major 247). Taking into consideration what Claire have asserted at this point, it can be suggested that if students take their college life positively, they will not have to face anxiety and fear of unknown during the said time period. An intelligent college student would take these legends as overhyped and exaggeration to little negativity presents in college life and would sincerely focus on studies. In contrast, if the student believes these legends and take them as a truth without even experiencing college life, he/she will not be able to fit in properly in their college life and amongst college’s faculty or friends. Therefore, it can be suggested that college students should not focus on what they hear about college life as they never physically witnessed the happening of any event at the college level. Their perception of college life should be based on what and how they experience during their college life. Similarly, those who narrate these legends to pre-college students should understand that every person has a different perspective towards life and different reaction to life events and scenarios. Therefore, they should not impose their experience on others, instead should present it as a life experience that could be beneficial for the fresh students in college. But people argue that you need to be proactive in facing worst-case scenarios in life. I suggest that it might be for the benefit of an individual to let him prepare for the worst in college, but preparing only for the worst is not an intelligent thinking. In this manner, new students at college will be stereotyping others’ experiences, and would not see positivity in life events and scenarios at college. Rather than focusing on their studies and enjoy to the fullest the company of their fellow students, a pessimistic student will always focus on negative aspects of these life events and scenarios at college. In this manner, he/she will never be intelligent or proactive in their studies and co-curricular activities. Coming back to my first day at college, I realized that anxiety and fear I had before coming to the college were not present. I found about my principal that he is a very delightful character, when he came to the dorm’s café and addressed all freshmen with motivating speech. Moreover, he also conducted an introductory session with new students and had lunch with them. At nighttime, when all freshmen got settled after unpacking their belongings, they gathered in the lobby of the dorm and introduced each other. Now I was thinking differently about the coming days in college and felt satisfied with the day I spent so far. To conclude this response, I would like to suggest freshmen to the college, they should not believe on legends and stories associated with college life. Instead, they should experience this life themselves, and then build their perception of how college life helps an individual to polish their skill and become a more sophisticated character in their personal and professional life. Work Cited Major, Claire Howell. “Exam Scams and Classroom Flimflams: Urban legends as an alternative lens for viewing the college classroom experience.” Innovative Higher Education 32 (2008): 237-250. Print. Read More