Maryville College changes comprehensive exam/thesis policy?
Rumors regarding Maryville College administration’s decision to allow future students to choose between taking comprehensive exams or completing a senior thesis/project. It is unclear whether or not these changes would affect incoming freshmen (the class of 2013) or would actually be geared toward the class of 2011. Without college leadership to confirm or deny these claims, students at MC, especially seniors like myself, are just a little miffed.
I, personally, happen to be just a little more than slightly annoyed that people couldn’t have the good tact to bring all this gossip up AFTER we’ve all turned in our thesis papers and finished comprehensive exams. Whether the collective senior irritation spawns from jealousy or disappointment in the apparent lowering of MC’s standards for graduating students is, quite frankly, irrelevant. We’re all stressed out beyond belief, pouring over notes and books that we’ve all but forgotten about in an effort to recoup all the knowledge that professors have stuffed in our heads since we began our careers here at MC.
Even though most of us wouldn’t wish this academic cram-fest on our worst enemies, we still can’t help but feel a bit miffed at the thought that at least half of our peers will not share in our agony. Where’s the unity that comes with mass suffering if a large chunk of the masses have been spared? The group consolation? The ceremonious victory that comes with each passing score? I guess I’m just a little disheartened by the idea that, by offering students an opportunity to forgo one senior criterion or another, the school may be lowering the strong academic standards that attracted me to the school in the first place.
…Just for the record, I think I would have chosen to write a thesis paper or complete a senior project if I was presented with the same choice as an MC student. This mountainous stack of notes dating all the way back to Spring 2007 seems absolutely unending and I’m getting sick of making flash-cards in an attempt to jump-start my memory. Ugh… I really just want to be done with these exams already!