To be honest, most of my university reading experience didn’t really exist—I think I’ve read maybe 30% of the required texts for courses, and most of those were because I needed to write papers on those specific texts. I’ve always been the type of person who prides myself on loving to read, but I didn’t expect the speed at which my interest would decline after being forced to read specific things. That’s not to say I don’t still love reading; give me a horror or fantasy novel and I’ll happily vanish for the day to read it— but being assigned so many texts about subjects I didn’t really care about definitely did not contribute to my interest. With that being said, some of the texts I needed to read ironically ended up being fundamental in books that I enjoy now; if I hadn’t been made to read Frankenstein in first year, would I still enjoy the gothic genre as much as I do now? Probably not. And the argument can definitely be made now: “Damien, what’s to say you wouldn’t love Canterbury Tales if you actually sat down and read it like you were supposed to?” Literally nothing! I could be missing out on my favourite book of all time because I never bothered with it when it was assigned to me. But luckily for me, I’ve been cursed with materialism, so the chances of me actually getting rid of any textbooks I bought are slim to none—which is a good thing! Now that I’m not reading on a time constraint, I genuinely want to read most of the textbooks I originally skipped.
On the topic of time, another reason why I would often give up on a text is because of the time limits. I made the unwise decision to always take six courses a semester (most people take four to five), and I got a job in second year through graduation; so, juggling that with several extracurriculars and having a social life (limited as it may be) meant I had to prioritize things, and sometimes textbooks would have to take a backseat if I picked up a shift or had a club meeting. But I feel like I need to emphasize that this wasn’t the professor’s fault; they were just assigning things they genuinely felt would be beneficial for the course (and I probably prioritized my social life a couple times too many). I was also fortunate enough to have friends in English courses who were willing to put up with my nonsense and share lecture/reading notes, which absolutely is the only reason why I graduated with fairly good grades.
Overall, I didn’t have the best experience reading required texts, but I also recognize that 90% of that was my own fault because of general disinterest and time limits.
— by Petra Bauer