I Don’t Read: Tales of an Academic Delinquent
The title explains it all: I don’t read. Specifically, I don’t read for class. No textbooks, no course packets, no online journal articles and certainly no ego-stroking HBS case studies. Amazingly (perhaps), I’ve managed to not look at a single reading-required or optional-for any of my classes since the start of this semester. Part of it is sheer laziness; part of it is to see just how long I could get by as a graduate student who refuses to read. What follows are my findings…in academic form, of course.
The only real lesson I learned from a semester of ethics is that everything can be distilled into a two-by-two box, which I use to present my argument in an aesthetically pleasing form. Whether or not this distillation is a good idea is a different question entirely, but what good is a HKS education if you can’t inappropriately apply the skills you’ve learned?
So the issue boils down to two main questions: is reading beneficial for my grade and is it a good use of my time? I believe the answer to both questions is no. But as any good HKS student knows, readers like to see subtitles, so I break the remainder of this article into healthy, bite-sized chunks.
Is reading beneficial for my grade?
As anecdotal evidence, I am not failing any of my classes. In fact, my midterms and assignments have so far been above average. Moreover, tales from other students show that a good portion do little or no reading for their classes, yet few, if any at all, have failed a class. In fact, judging from the claims from this sub-group, which range anywhere from “I aced the class” to “I barely scraped by,” I’d wager that the grade distribution of people that don’t read is remarkably similar to the overall grading curve. In other words, reading is not correlated with grades. There are several possible reasons for this.
First, graded materials seldom rely on content found only in readings. Even if a text is required, the gist of it is covered in class or in handouts (if you’re inclined to skip). I suppose the exception to this would be case-based classes that involve cold-calling. Fortunately, I’m not taking any such classes because I’ve never learned much from them in the first place.
Second, the educational value of readings is low. Articles and cases are usually twenty to forty pages, sometimes longer. Of that, only a handful of pages are actually useful and mentioned in class. This goes back to my first point: the stuff you read is often completely unnecessary.
Third, and more controversial, people who tend to do all the readings diligently may be those that are pretty darn smart to begin with. So it’s not the readings that are the cause of higher grades for these individuals; rather, they’re just naturally brilliant and hard working. Kudos to them for being both geniuses and organized enough to take on the hundreds of pages of readings assigned every week. But I don’t think their grades would suffer very much if they stopped reading for class.
My stance, like any good economist these days, is that reading has no association with grades. However, like any other post-PAE MPP2, I am also too lazy to go about doing the required data collection and analysis. So I hereby bequeath this task to our more motivated and curious MPP1 brothers and sisters. I suppose it would make an excellent PAE topic too.
Is reading a good use of my time?
Now that I have established that reading is of dubious academic value, we can now judge whether it is a worthwhile endeavor given our busy schedules. This is a question about opportunity costs, which is really just jargon for “best alternative.” With only 24 hours in each day of our finite lives, is it really a good idea to read things we’re bound to forget by next week? Not only are we spending time reading mind-numbingly long articles, we are also missing out on all the things we could be doing instead. Imagine how many Kodak moments you have lost just because you had to finish another article.
Logically, we would only choose to read for class if the marginal utility of reading was greater than the marginal utility of our next best alternative. Since I believe that reading is poorly associated with grades, the marginal utility of reading is quite low.
Furthermore, it also exhibits diminishing returns: reading two pages of the abstract and conclusion prove more useful than reading the next two pages of drab methodology and so on. Besides, if I really wanted to learn what was in these readings, I’d just look at the class handouts or go to a review session where the teaching fellow did all the reading and thinking for me.
And if I had to read something, why would I choose dull academic articles when I could be reading about the latest escapades of Lindsay Lohan in Us Weekly? Alternatively, why read anything at all when I could be doing more productive activities such as baking apple-cranberry bread pudding or watching America’s Next Top Model? Life is simply too short to be spent buried in course packets.
Conclusion
Reading for class is both of minimal academic value and a poor use of time. While initially my “no reading” resolution was borne out of laziness and the desire to rage against the machine (I’ve always wanted to say that), I’ve come to realize that by not reading, I have saved countless hours each week to spend on more enjoyable activities without adversely impacting my grades. Thank you, HKS. Without your incredibly boring (and expensive) course packets and textbooks, I would never have seen the light.
Comments
4 Responses to “I Don’t Read: Tales of an Academic Delinquent”
Got something to say?
You have to take a program evaluation course! If you are, you better start do the readings!
Ben:
I enjoyed your brazen, iconoclastic, tongue-wedged-in-cheek article. Your findings make intuitive sense: my grades are not correlated with my commitment to course reading. I wonder, though, if you should have broadened your argument. Isn’t the state of affairs you describe more of an indictment of our grading and teaching methods than our assigned reading?
The School’s commitment to an absurd curve system where relative rather than absolute performance is assessed within almost arbitrary boundaries means there is almost no fear of failure and an implicit understanding that if you’re not a complete cretin then a B+ will come your way. And, hey, will an employer ever know that a B+ at Harvard means you were potentially in the bottom half of that class? If not doing the reading means you can’t grasp the range and depth of views in your chosen course then the grading system should identify this. But it doesn’t. It coddles students and encourages moral hazard by pooling risk of failure.
A few years ago, the music magazine Mojo abandoned its system of awarding “stars” (circa Rolling Stone) to albums. The argued it was too arbitrary, didn’t provide sufficient boundaries for criticism, and encouraged apples and oranges (or perhaps Peaches and Bananarama) comparisons. Instead, they afforded each album some specific commentary, on its own merits and efforts. The grading system at Kennedy is so worthless it should either be scrapped entirely or given some serious clout. I don’t want to be at a school where people essentially cannot fail.
Another failure you hint at is that even if you do the reading then it’s not relevant to the class. You never dig deep enough into the readings to make them worthwhile and then, a week later, you’ve forgotten about them. If we want to be taken seriously as a graduate school in terms of academic rigor, we’ve got to be willing to face tough questions, cold calling, and the Socratic method. The real world is tough, and this warm-blanket pedagogy does not reflect this. There are, of course, exceptions (the very thought of Ash Carter scares me witless) but the majority of the courses at the Kennedy School, are, well, too nice. They don’t push us hard enough. We don’t do the readings. And we don’t get punished for it. A vicious cycle ensues. We need to take a serious look at how we get taught at this school because if you never get asked about more than the abstract of a particular reading then reading it does become irrelevant.
OK, rant over; I have to go read for class.
John
John,
I completely agree with you. However, I do not think that this problem is confined only to the MPP Program or even HKS as a whole. For instance, I’ve taken several MPA/ID classes and haven’t bothered doing the readings for them either. In fact, I talked to some students after the midterm who did do the readings and they said that it might have been better had they NOT read for class, because the readings just left them with too much information to distill into an 80 minute midterm.
Does this mean that all of these programs fall flat in terms of academic rigor? Perhaps, but I don’t necessarily think the answer is to mimic HBS or HLS with their cold-calling and Socratic methods. There are several reasons for this.
First, while I have my doubts about the educational quality here at HKS, I have even stronger skepticism about our B-school counterparts across the river. I think both schools are overly obsessed in teaching “leadership” out of some self-inflated view of what Harvard should be doing. But leadership without the technical skills and understanding of the subject is a recipe for disaster, and I think that both schools suffer from this. I’m quite concerned that we’re churning out a bunch of “future world leaders” with only a slightly-better-than-undergraduate level understanding of economics, finance, and management. Now, some people may argue with me that these courses may not be relevant to their intended field of work, but if that’s the case and 10 years from now I find them making ridiculous claims like those I read in the newspapers all the time, then I have every right to march into their plush office and slap them in the face (which might be a tad harsh, but totally deserved).
Second, even if HKS were to adopt the Socratic method and compel its students to read all the assignments, I question the value that this policy would bring. While not reading at all certainly adds very little educational value to class, the marginal value of many of the readings assigned are simply not worth the time spent or the paper they are printed on. I cannot count the number of papers I have read (or tried to read) that were 50 pages of crap and maybe 1 page of semi-useful utterances. The point here is that if HKS really wants to add value through required readings, the faculty also need to make an effort to ensure that the readings they do assign are both pertinent and concise. As of yet, I do not believe this is the case.
Third, I agree with you that the grade distribution curve is absurd and distorts incentives to make an effort since we all know that one has to try even harder to fail a class than to ace it. Ideally, having done the readings for class (and understanding them!) should be used as a signal to identify A-students from B-students and C-students. Yes, I say C-students, because I do believe that the curve should be eliminated. HKS should fess up to the fact that some students really do deserve C or lower grades and the fact that we go to Harvard does not entitle us to ego-stroking grade inflation. Thus, knowledge of the readings would supplement graded assignments in determining student performance. As it stands, reading is a poor signal for student performance, perhaps even totally uncorrelated.
Turns out my rant is even longer than yours, but perhaps by our rants combined, we could ignite a more constructive discussion on the intellectual rigor here at HKS.
To the anonymous commenter,
Actually, I’m currently taking Alberto Abadie’s program evaluation course and I happen to be doing quite well in it, despite not having read any of the studies covered in class. I’m not sure if the intent of the post was sarcasm or a genuine warning, but I thank you for your concern for my academic well-being anyway.
I am of several minds upon reflecting upon this article, so I would offer a few thoughts.
First, this strategy rests on the premise that the reason for being at the Kennedy School is to get grades that will somehow help your future life. Of course it’s possible to do perfectly well here in terms of grades- a professional school shouldn’t emphasize grades except as a means of differentiating the truly exceptional and the total failures. We’re adults (or should be), and our purpose for being here is more likely to be to expand our knowledge and networks than grades per se.
Second, I will totally buy the idea that many of the readings are of marginal utility and, when weighed against the opportunity cost of seeing the Defense Minister of Turkey (or sometimes a beer at Shay’s) they do not make the cut. However, I will say that often, in my experience, the readings to contribute significantly to the depth my understanding of the material- even if they are not touched in the class discussion or covered by the exam. Any individual’s choices about that are their own- except if they talk in class. If you have not done the reading, I feel like you forfeit your right to air time in the classroom.
The number of times that people in class at HKS make a comment that either duplicates the reading or indicates a clear lack of preparation is truly offensive at a professional school. It shows a massive disrespect for fellow students and for the professor, and the fact that it is tolerated by the professors here as a matter of course is shameful. So if you don’t read, keep your trap shut.
Finally, having taken a number of classes at other schools, I share your opinion about their overinflated sense of the importance of “leadership.” However, I have to say that the level of discussion possible because people have done the readings, done some outside analysis, and are generally afraid of looking like a total jackass in front of one’s peers, is shocking- particularly after HKS where people seem to have no similar fear. My first class at HBS was jarring- everyone came on time, no one checked Facebook in class, and the professor managed discussion in such a way as to keep comments both time limited and relevant. That’s a standard I wouldn’t mind seeing HKS at least try to achieve.
I certainly respect your points, but I would hate to see HKS go any farther down the road of classroom mediocrity.