Where are all the classics?

Giovanni Garcia/Staff Writer 

Each semester starts and all the freshmen are given a SLS lecture to get started with college life. Everything seems interesting enough: midterms, reports, strict due dates and assigned books. Some English lectures would recommend certain books to read for the class, but it turns out the book is an example of college life. Some assigned books can be very informative, but other books can be quite weird.

The one thing I remember thinking about what college was supposed to be was the books you were supposed to read. All of the classics like Homer, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc., were the top names I remembered seeing college students reading when I was younger.

What happened to them? Sadly, most high schools will only briefly introduce these classics to their students. Even certain plays from Shakespeare are not used since it’s a repeating trend. Those who are very skilled at reading will happily grab these books on their spare time and get lost in their pages. A smaller percentage would read these books to take references for other projects or reports.

But the largest percent do not read any of the classics and some have no interest to read at all — mainly because some of these classics are harder to understand. When you listen to someone reading “Beowulf” in Old English, the reader sounds like they are speaking in tongues. I would be scared to try to read “Beowulf” in Anglo Saxon, but there are no classes to learn the language at all. The only students who are inclined to read the classics, or any intensive reading at all, are certain English majors.

With these weird SLS books, they try to catch the general crowd with the right mindset. Some students would try to read a book for how strange or bizarre it can be. Then there are those who get hooked into the book and would read every page. You must consider the students who read it just to pass the course, either getting into the college study habit or just there because they have no other option but to take the class.

As much as I would like to have tips to survive college, I would appreciate to just have that. Tips. Nothing extreme, something short, bulleted and — best of all — with diagrams. If I want to read something for a class, I’d prefer a classic than a new age mumbo jumbo story. There is a classic story for everything and we can learn from the morals or outcomes of fictional characters. Even though a percentage of people are losing interest in reading, I still prefer to have classics around in college classes.

giovanni.garcia@fiusm.com