As college students, we all evaluate the efficient use of our time in order to balance class, homework, projects, and more. I wonder, however, if students in general fail to understand what true education is and what it means to be a truly educated scholar.

I recently walked out of a classroom with a fellow “scholar” who started complaining about the professor’s “tangents.” It suddenly struck me as an exceptionally ignorant statement. While the subject matter of the “tangent” may not be applicable to a test, it did expand upon the subject matter in the class and I had found it to be intellectually stimulating. I appreciated the professor feeling that we could appreciate a greater scope of understanding and application. I knew that the student who made the comment “tunes out” whenever the professor goes off on these “tangents,” and I realized that the student does not truly value education.

Our primary focus on the letter grade we receive for the courses we take occupies our minds and affects our concentration in class and our efforts in course work. This is reasonable — our grades affect our GPA, which determine scholarships and admittance into graduate school. The grade is a direct reflection of our performance, efforts and understanding of the material and content from the course. What disturbs me, however, is the sense of entitlement students have developed towards their professor’s lecturing. Students speak about professors who go on tangents during their lectures as if the professors are wasting the students’ time. We have all heard the complaint, and may have said it ourselves. The rationale behind the statement often comes from our high evaluation of the tuition we spend for the course and the fear and pressure we feel to get that high letter grade. While this is understandable, it often infuriates me.

We are scholars of higher education. You have left the classrooms of high school where you are forced to take standardized tests and where teachers are pressured to teach according to certain guidelines. Leave those limitations in the past. Teaching beyond the scope of a test would be considered by most scholars to be elevated academia. If you are only worried about what will be on the test, you undervalue the worth of your own mind, the knowledge and wisdom of your professor, and you perpetuate a limited understanding of education within the confines of regurgitory testing. By going off on these so-called tangents, the professors are granting you insights and opening windows into their much broader understanding of the application the course content may have.

It would be demeaning of a professor’s intellect to teach only the bare minimum to the students who sit before them, reminding them of their duty to impart knowledge and to teach them to be truly educated individuals. Do you not see the glint in their eyes, the passion in their voice, and sense their thrill as they are trying to impart to you some great connection or realization? These are not signs of senility. These are signs of the joy found in the world of academia — signs of the wealth of knowledge found in the truly educated mind.

If you are judging your professor under the foolish impression that you know better than they do regarding the appropriate use of your time, it’s time for a wake-up call. You are revealing your own ignorance and lack of academic understanding with your pejorative statements regarding a professor’s lecture time as digressional, or departing from what you, the oh-so-wise student, deem necessary. Try paying attention. Try to actually enjoy learning. Stop limiting your mind to only take in the bare minimum. I promise you that when you begin to delight in learning, you will begin to see additional knowledge everywhere. You will feel fulfilled by your studies and truly enlightened by your professors, especially during those times when they vary from the expected.