“So much more”

Comment Editor Emilia critiques the secondary role of emotions in the education system.

I used to think it is an absurd coincidence that deadlines always fall exactly on the weeks I find myself in some sort of emotional turmoil. In my last semester of university I now have to admit that I will always find myself in some sort of emotional turmoil. We are conditioned, by the educational trajectories enforced on us, to attach a great deal of success and pride to the achievement of a degree. In many ways I agree, that any academic endeavour is challenging and therefore to be applauded. What I find irritating, is that while many around me have liberated themselves from the deception of a successful trajectory, the underlying conviction is still that whatever emotional journey we are going through is secondary. That we are to live academic lives separately from our personal, emotional lives.

It might be widely accepted that university teaches you “so much more than just academic achievement,” but if you were to zoom into the years you spent studying, that “so much more” never really got its designated time. I do not mean the free time we spend outside of class. I mean the “so much more” that goes on in our heads, in our emotional lives, where we grow and struggle – that seems to always be in the way of the subject matter rather than included in it.

Of course I understand that a subject matter remains, at least in my discipline, a scientific one which must be thought through on different grounds than my personal thoughts and feelings. Still, I wish our world did not have to separate profession from emotion so much. This is not a critique advocating for our essays to include phrases like “I feel” rather than “I believe.” Rather, I think I am advocating for more recognition of emotional maturing and intelligence in our whole education system. I also wish this to be interpreted as written by a person, not an “emotional female.”