Here’s a suggestion for the beginning of an academic year: Make and keep a resolution or two to address what’s really urgent in your academic life. If, for instance, like J. Alfred Prufrock, you tend to think that “There will be time, there will be time” and endlessly defer getting to work, resolve to work as though the first weeks of class are already the last few. Every semester I talk with students who acknowledge that they could benefit from this resolution — they begin with Ds and Cs and sometimes, much later in the semester, when they make a real effort, they get Bs and As. Alas, their semester grades reflect all their work, not just what happens when they get going. If you’ve felt invisible in your classes, you might resolve to bring your invisibility to an end. Don’t sit in the back of the room or off to one side, as far away as you can be without being elsewhere. Contribute to class discussions, even if you feel uncertain about doing so. Ask questions after class, and seek out your professors during office hours. Faculty are sometimes too willing to lump all students together as iPod-toting consumerists who want nothing more from their education than a good grade-point average. If that’s not you, make your professors see who you are. Your resolution doesn’t have to be complex. It might be a matter of simple, direct action — placing an alarm clock at a significant distance from your bed (and remembering to turn it on), or buying and using a datebook to keep track of what you need to do. (I’m always amazed to see students who have no reliable means of planning — no datebook, no PDA, no hipster PDA.) The academic year is an almost magical construction. Here in my corner of the northern hemisphere, I always marvel that when the leaves are changing color and the calendar year is running out, everything is also beginning again. Michael Leddy teaches college English and has published widely as a poet and critic. He blogs at Orange Crate Art.
