Hello dear students–
Just writing with a quick hello.
I’ve had the chance to talk with a few of you this week about one of the most challenging experiences of going through college: balancing all of your real-life responsibilities and commitments with the (often unachievable) expectations of faculty.
So, a lil’ story:
When I started college, I was struggling with my mental health. Despite being a straight-A student, I soon found out that most of my professors didn’t value my critical approaches to the course material, and in fact got hella defensive when I brought up possible alternative thinking around the texts and ideas we looked at. Ugh! This only contributed to my mental health issues, and I struggled to figure out some way to balance all of the expectations of others, many of whom didn’t express what their expectations actually were.
When I was able to ask for support from my instructors, most of them didn’t want to hear anything about my situation. They didn’t want to hear excuses. To me, my emotional well-being didn’t feel like an excuse: it was reality that I couldn’t shake nor work around. I desperately needed someone to give me a break so that I could keep my head above water.
This is all to say: we believe you.
If you need extra time on an assignment for us, tell us. If you need to miss class because you’re exhausted, we will miss you, but miss a class. If you need a few minutes before class starts to eat lunch, call your parent/s, text your bestie, etc., come a few minutes late. If you have an exam coming up for a class with an instructor who doesn’t offer makeups, put aside your work for us and study for the exam.
Your well-being is more important to us than assignment deadlines.
We will work with you.
Sending tenacity to all, and looking forward to reading your newest LLs & responses, and seeing everyone on Tuesday!
JRE