W

ith 
the 
semester 
nearing its end and 
the standoff between 
the 
Graduate 
Employees’ 
Organization and the University 
of Michigan raging on, there’s no 
better time than now to reflect 
back on how this school year has 
gone academically. For some, 
this year was filled with packed 
schedules, long study nights and 
never-ending amounts of work; 
for others, classes may have been 
an afterthought. Personally, I 
tried to find a middle ground: 
balancing a moderate course load 
with time to socialize. Regardless 
of how the year played out for 
you, what unites many U-M 
students’ experiences is a general 
feeling that the traditional way 
we learn has changed. 
It is important to first define 
the traditional way we learn 
at the University of Michigan. 
This idea refers to the lecture 
and 
discussion 
format 
that 
makes up the overwhelming 
majority of courses provided by 
the University. These are the 
classes where students have the 
opportunity to take part in both 
a large learning environment and 
a closer, conversational section. 
This structure is largely the 
norm.
The 
first 
major 
problem 
with this system has to do 
with attendance. While some 
courses make attendance in 
lecture compulsory, there are 
many where that is not the case. 
Scores of students skip their 
lectures, choosing to spend their 
time sleeping in or socializing 
rather than learning from their 

professors. For example, in an 
astronomy lecture of mine, only 
10 students showed up when 
more than 100 were registered. 
It appears that as of late, students 
are not showing up to class in the 
same capacity they have in the 
past. 
Why, you might be asking, has 
this become so widespread? The 
simplest answer is laziness. It’s 
much easier for a busy college 
student to stay in the comfort 
of their own home than to walk 
10 minutes to a lecture hall. 
Furthermore, with the rise in 
Lecture Capture spearheaded 
by the pandemic, there are many 
students who prefer to watch 
lectures on their own time rather 
than attending them in-person. 
But laziness cannot be the 
sole reason why students skip 
lectures, especially when our 
coursework and extracurriculars 
become more strenuous over 
time. There must be something 
greater at play here, something 
that can be better understood if 
we consider the changing ways 
U-M students complete their 
schoolwork.
The days when completing 
schoolwork was a strictly human 
process are over. When tasked 
with essays to write, worksheets 
to fill out or projects to work 
through, many students are not 
turning to their lecture notes, 
textbooks or even the internet 
for help. They are looking to their 
pal ChatGPT and other Artificial 
Intelligence softwares to get the 
work done for them. One in five 
college students have turned 
to AI tools in order to complete 
their 
assignments, 
and 
this 
figure will only be exacerbated 
if the traditional learning system 
remains 
stagnant 
while 
AI 

continues to innovate.
It is the digital age that is 
leading traditional college classes 
down the path to antiquity. This 
explanation, though, is only 
half the story. The problem has 
much more to do with the way 
technology has impacted human 
behavior than it has to do with 
the technology itself. 
For starters, convenience has 
become the name of the game. 
With just a few clicks on a screen, 
we can buy anything we want, 
talk to whoever we want and 
practically see or hear anything 
we want at a moment’s notice. 
Students will turn to ChatGPT 
to complete their assignments 
for the same reason millions of 
people use Amazon each day 
to shop: They want things to be 
quick and easy. If this is what 
people desire for practically 
every other facet of daily life, 
why should education be any 
different? 
On a similar note, technology 
has led to a growing desire for 
personalization. We personalize 
our phones with applications 
that are tailored to our personal 
preferences 
and 
needs. 
We 
carefully 
watch 
videos 
on 
TikTok so that our For You pages 
are customized to our interests. 
More than 70% of consumers 
expect companies to deliver 
personalized interactions, and 
students want the same from 
their education. In the busy 
lives of college students, it is 
much more attractive to be able 
to customize learning by fitting 
lectures into their own schedule 
than it is for students to have 
to abide by a fixed learning 
environment.

Opinion

Are traditional college classes 
becoming obsolete?

Average pet owner

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, April 12, 2023 

C

ourse scheduling time is 
one of my favorite parts 
of the year. Say what 
you will, but there’s something 
very exciting about finding out 
about new classes being offered 
or which course your favorite 
professor will be teaching next 
semester. Equipped with multiple 
spreadsheets as I comb through 
the course guide, I am simply 
way too thorough and way too 
over the top about the whole 
process, but what can I say — I 
enjoy it. What I do not enjoy are 
conflicts — when there are two 
or more classes happening at the 
same time and I have to pick just 
one. In those moments, not only 
am I disappointed, but I begin to 
spiral.
Indecisiveness has been a 
trait that has plagued me for 

as long as I can remember. You 
can try and put a good spin on 
it by saying things like, “It just 
means you are more cautious 
and pragmatic,” but the truth is, 
it’s a problem. Every time I am 
faced with making a choice, I will 
move heaven and earth to make 
it so that I don’t have to make 
that choice, and I believe that 
that is a very undesirable trait 
to have. If you do not think that 
you suffer from indecision, this 
column may not be your cup of 
tea. However, if you feel similar to 
how I do, then I would urge you 
to continue reading. It’s high time 
we are honest with ourselves and 
address the elephant in the room: 
our indecision is holding us back.
From personal experience, I 
find that anger is one of the first 
byproducts of indecision. Not 
only does the frustration from 
not being able to take a stand ruin 
your day, it takes up a lot more 
of your mental bandwidth than 

it should. It can be extremely 
tiring to have to mull over the 
same thing over and over again, 
sometimes for days and weeks 
on end. This makes your decision 
even harder, it increases the 
chances of making the wrong one. 
The Bhagavad Gita, a religious 
text of Hinduism, suggests that 
one of the most undesirable traits 
is indeed anger, mainly due to its 
ability to drive one further away 
from their normal self. In other 
words, when you are angry, you 
are a shadow of your true self — 
less able and less likely to make 
the right move.
But if a religious text written 
centuries ago isn’t convincing 
enough, let’s try Forbes magazine. 
According to Forbes, one of the 
most important traits for success 
is accountability, and the second 
thing indecisiveness breeds is a 
lack of accountability. 

Your indecision is holding you back

MAX FELDMAN
Opinion Columnist 

RUSHABH SHAH
Opinion Columnist 

Design by Sara Fang

Design by Hannah Willingham

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

NURIA
CALVET

Helen Dodson Prince 
Collegiate Professor 
of Astronomy

Watching 
Stars Grow

A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information, 

including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.edu/event/103676 or call 734.615.6667.

Wednesday, May 3, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10th Floor

