I am very excited to have been awarded honors. To me, it means that a group of academics that I really respect and admire believe that I have worked hard to achieve a goal that I set for myself.
But, even while I am excited to be part of it, I feel that there is something inherently wrong with the academic system that awards honors.
At first, when people asked my why I was trying to write an honors thesis, I told them the truth: it seemed like a good challenge. It was not until I was told to put “candidate for honors degree” on my resume that I noticed how other people see the word honors. Honors apparently holds more weight than an extracurricular activity or volunteer work. I guess it means that the student is dedicated, intelligent, thoughtful and analytical and they can prove that through there work. That’s great and all, but I know plenty of people who are all of those things who didn’t get awarded honors or didn’t even try. Why not? Time constraints mostly. It was not that the talent wasn’t there, but the time wasn’t.
As the honors process progressed, I saw myself get tied to the distinction. Since I had such a light course load, I equated getting honors with having accomplished anything at all during my last semester. Somehow all of the work that I had done to try and achieve this goal melted away. It didn’t matter that I had done independent research or learned the lexicon of a discipline that I had previously be unfamiliar with, I just wanted the title.
Wikipedia does a pretty good job of putting my feelings into words. Under the Critique section it reads
“Some researchers have questioned the validity of the honor roll as an effective form of positive reinforcement. It is argued that the pursuit of extrinsic reward is not an accurate reflection of intrinsic interest in course material.”
To be awarded honors feels like being let in to a epistemic group of academics within the already special group of academics. It feels like saying “We are special because we say we are.” I haven’t done anything to positively impact the world yet. As Peter Walker brings up in his piece Political Ecology: Where is the Policy?, “Critique by itself is not engagement.” I don’t protest against human rights violations. I am not politically active. But I am still receiving praise. It just seems backwards!
I had to work very very hard to separate myself from the desire for the distinction and be proud of what I had achieved. And now I am almost bitter about having been awarded honors. If I truly believe all of the things that I am saying, wouldn’t I be happier if I wasn’t awarded honors?
My thesis is about politics, science and power relations. It was not easy to write and nearly impossible to write well. I was told I was awarded honors because of how hard the work that I did was. It isn’t necessarily going to be an “A” paper, but my committee thought I deserved recognition for tackling such a difficult subject. I really appreciate that. But I don’t know if that this sort of recognition is the norm. I mostly expect that honors papers are immaculate but don’t really cover new territory, but that shouldn’t be the point! Students should be encouraged to tackle projects that they are unsure of, try to cover new ground. I’m not sure how much I actually did that, but I guess it was enough.
So yay for honors!
But my admiration goes out to anyone who has ever wanted to learn more or do more, not because of a title or a distinction, but because of genuine interest or desire to do more.
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