Academic Flexibility Quotes

I just went along with political activists and interested in other intellectual interests which I pursued kind of at random. I never had a real college education. I got a degree, but it was just patching together courses here and there.

I decided I wanted to go to Cambridge, and then I got introduced to Fred Sanger. I was very conscientious, and I asked him when I first got there if I should start reading up on things. But he said, 'No, I think you can just start these experiments,' so I plunged right in.

The school was very supportive. The only class that I had to attend every day was biology when we were doing dissections. I would take an 8 a.m. bio class, dissect my animal, and then run to work.

At high school, instead of the weekly essay, I would write a poem, and the teacher accepted that. The impulse was one of laziness, I'm certain. Poems were shorter than essays.

I went to McGill University, but I didn't graduate. They won't graduate me because I didn't have a degree in any one thing. I studied everything and they were like, "You studied too many things, so we can't give you a degree."

This is to inform all the Students that their Attendance at College Orders is hereby dispensed with … and that they are at liberty to return Home or prosecute their Studies elsewhere, as they think proper: And that those who pay particular Attention to their Studies that these as these confused Times will admit, shall then be considered in the same Light and Standing as if they had given the usual Attendance here.

The psychology degree is simply that I was a chemistry major, and they kept wanting the correct answer, whereas in psychology you basically write whatever you want, and chances are you get a B.

Academia is very flexible, but I had a spouse who was very committed to being a completely full partner in our marriage. I think if you counted up how many hours each one of us logged in, he certainly gets more than 50%.

I can see a day soon where you'll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world - some computing from Stanford, some entrepreneurship from Wharton, some ethics from Brandeis, some literature from Edinburgh - paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion.

I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they’d say yes.

I was in college in Washington, D.C. I did three years full-time. I did all my requirements, and my senior year was really a gut year. And I said, 'Law school will always be there.' I was in no hurry to get right into that.

Contrary to what some folks would have us believe, it is not tragic, even if undesirable, for a person to leave a liberal arts education not having read major works from this canon. Their lives are not ending. And the exciting dimension of knowledge is that we can learn a work without formally studying it. If a student graduates without reading Shakespeare and then reads or studies this work later, it does not delegitimize whatever formal course of study that was completed.

If I have to go to New York or something, I'll bring my books and read and do homework. It's not really a big deal.

Because of the flexibility that community colleges afford, many students do not have to choose between an education and fulfilling other responsibilities - they can do both.

We should also give students more flexibility in the courses they take in high school to prepare them for whatever their goals may be, without sacrificing our rigorous academic standards.

I was always a very good student, 3.98 GPA... But once I found out I only had to take math and science for two years, I didn't take them junior or senior year. And I convinced my high school to give me actual credits for doing professional shows in Minneapolis... as work-study.

Our universities advocate fragmentation in their course systems.

I know I wouldn't have made the callback for 'Ma' if my father's house had not burned down because I would have been in finals. My teachers would not have been chill with me leaving in the middle of my Medieval Magic final.

I went to Oberlin College, and they don't have a film major, but they do have what's called an individual major, where you can sort of pitch to a committee your own course study, and if they approve it, you have essentially just designed your own major. So Oberlin doesn't have a film major; they do have a film minor... And then my spring semester of my junior year, I went off to NYU film school as a visiting student - they have a program for kids from other schools to come in for a semester.

I was a jock, hardcore sports all the way down the line, but I heard that if you auditioned for this arts school, you got time off school, and that sounded good to me.

It's not imperative that I graduate in four years, and it's not imperative that I get all A's.

I think Caltech fills a unique role, and it's not a cheap one. Their small size allows them to do interdisciplinary work a lot more effectively than anyplace else I know. The bigger universities get cast into silos.

I was fortunate to have teachers that were flexible with allowing me to miss more class than I was supposed to be able to, for the sake of being able to tour.

My ex-girlfriend said to me, 'I'm surprised at how normal you are since you were homeschooled.' But I was only homeschooled because I wanted to be an actor. My parents are both teachers.

At most schools, if you switch majors, you basically start over. That means more semesters... and more money. The former might be appealing, but the latter is a major problem for a demographic already saddled with student debt.