This semester as part of my major
requirements, I am taking Exercise Psychology.
This is a course that focuses on why people exercise and what keeps
people exercising. The professor of the
class is a particularly strong believer that everyone has time to exercise, and
that, if people claim not to have time to exercise, they need to improve their
time management skills so that they can schedule this important activity into
their day. She calls the list of excuses
that people use to get out of exercising “excusercising.” I find this to be an extremely interesting
concept particularly because it is not necessarily an idea I believe in.
As someone who is involved in
several organizations on campus and taking 17 hours this semester, I often rush
from activities to classes to meetings from 8:00am or even before until at
least 8:00 at night. After the long day
is over, I still have homework to do and assignments to complete. I definitely do not have the time or energy
to stay up even later in order to exercise.
I also do not believe that better time management would solve this
problem. I have a “Type A” personality,
which means I am ultra organized and have my days scheduled down to the minute. There is no way I could work in an extra hour
for exercising without taking away from my sleep.
Through my experience in this
class, I have learned to agree to disagree with my professor. It is challenging to motivate myself to learn
about a subject that I do not care about and frequently do not even agree
with. Excusercising is only one of the
many topics we have covered that I question the validity of. In addition, I also find the textbook for
this class to be biased towards certain groups and populations. Yet, if I want
to graduate as a kinesiology major, I must study this material well enough to make
good grades in the class.
As a result, I am learning to make the
class worthwhile despite my lack of interest.
I find myself using various strategies to help myself remain attentive
such as amusing myself with the many typos throughout the textbook and
contemplating the multiple statements made that I do not agree with. Even if I am not exactly following along with
the learning goals of the class as stated in the syllabus, I have managed to
find my own value in the time this class requires of me. It is almost impossible to stay dedicated to
a class that I am not interested in, but with a little bit of effort and
creativity, any class can be personalized to a form that is meaningful and
worthwhile for each individual student.
I am currently in a study room in Rees-Jones hall with my friend, who happens to be studying for this very same class! The post caught my eye, especially when you mentioned your lack of interest, as my friend feels the exact same way. I understand how hard it can be to get motivated for a subject when you have no interest in it. In addition, I have the same type of feeling just based on the fact that I will know where I'm going to law school by the end of this semester. I'm anticipating an extreme lack of motivation next semester. My goal is to do just as you said, to use creativity and effort to make my classes as interesting as possible and remind myself that education is a privilege. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI agree that sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day for exercise, and honestly, sleep is just as important. Not to take away from the importance of exercise, but you certainly have to have some balance. Your boredom in this class and having to follow through with it despite differing values and beliefs reminded me of an ethics and religion class I took last semester. While you find typos, I covered my notebook in doodles or sometimes studied for other classes. Unfortunately, I think most people go through a class like this at some point so its important to know how to handle it and make the most of it for the time being! Hopefully this class is only a semester long!
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