When I graduated high school, I told myself I would never take another math class. I planned to spend the next four years reading books, writing papers, having debates and not stressing about difficult problem sets. Did I even need to bring a calculator to college? As I poked around online at the end of August, searching exciting course titles on Carta, I daydreamed about everything I would learn in my shamelessly fuzzy comfort zone. With the massive selection of courses at Stanford, I could easily stick to my interests and skirt around any course listings that looked like potential sources of misery. I had gone to school for my entire life and I knew my strengths – why not stick to them?
Maybe winter quarter I would try out Econ 1, and at some point it would be helpful to take a stats class and I couldn’t really call myself a Stanford student if I didn’t take CS 106A eventually … but freshman fall quarter would be restricted to my skill set. It would be a time to adjust, make some friends and stick to things I had traditionally excelled at. Stubbornly, I committed to not pushing myself (just yet). But somehow, when course signups finally opened and all that speculation about my freshman fall schedule became a reality, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to sign up for Econ 1, breaking my promise to myself with a few quick clicks on Axess.
Even when I found myself trudging through p-sets late at night or struggling through an overwhelming lecture, I never regretted my choice. In fact, Econ 1 became such an integral part of my freshman fall that I even wrote one of my first Daily columns about it. The problem sets, in addition to fostering new friendships out of shared frustration, provided a nice change of pace when I felt like I had endless articles to read and paragraphs to write for all my other classes. Then, after an hour struggling to make sense of graphs and having little faith in my solutions, it was refreshing to get back to work on my final paper for Modern Latin-American Literature. Even though I will always be better at eloquently expressing an idea than solving an equation, it became invigorating to break things up and do types of work that did not come naturally to me.
Amazed at the enhanced productivity and attention span that came out of rotating among a variety of assignments, I developed a guideline that I would apply when configuring my schedule in future quarters. The standard, which I coined “the quadruple-P balance,” is relatively intuitive and straightforward: Maintain a balance among classes that assign papers, projects, problem sets and presentations. The quadruple-P balance is a reminder to think not just about the number of units you take on, but also the type of work that they entail. A heavy course load that involves a range of modes of thinking, as well as a greater variety of tasks to complete, will be less monotonous and more manageable than an equal number of units with more uniformity. Rather than prescribing a set ratio among the type of assignments, the idea allows everyone to tailor his or her own quadruple-P balance according to major, interest and time commitment.
Since coining the term, I have shared the idea of the quadruple-P balance in countless conversations; my closest friends could definitely recite my explanatory shtick about it. Even if no one else deliberately uses the theory or finds it helpful, at least it’s been a way to elaborate on the ubiquitous question: “So what are you taking this quarter?” Conversations that normally wouldn’t have gotten past small talk have become contemplative, opening up reflections on finding balance and making the most of Stanford. My friends’ ideas and experiences have reinforced the theory of the quadruple-P balance. The other night, in discussing the difficulty of maintaining confidence at Stanford, one of my hallmates raised an interesting strategy: Pursue courses and activities in which you are unlikely to excel. Then, rather than comparing yourself to others with the same skill set, compare the challenges you face in areas of weakness with your proficiency in areas of strength. You’ll have a renewed appreciation for how hard you’ve worked and how far you’ve come, regardless of your current frustrations and perceived shortcomings. (The pressure to maintain a certain GPA will prompt some skeptics to dismiss this approach in an academic context. But as my pre-major advisor pointed out, Stanford allows students to graduate with 36 credit/no credit units, a policy intended to encourage the type of exploration that my hallmate advocates.)
Some may see the idea of the quadruple-P balance as common sense, but for me, it has been a dramatic and valuable departure from the approach that I intended to adopt upon graduating high school. The quadruple-P balance reminds me that I will maximize the value of my Stanford experience if I shop around and aim for variety, even if it means venturing beyond my comfort zone. Now, I strive to see challenges as assets, offering a change in pace and a rejuvenating shift in perspective on my own abilities. Last summer, I never would have made the claim that weaknesses are to be embraced instead of dodged. At least, even then, I did ultimately have the good sense to pack my calculator.
Contact Courtney Cooperman at ccoop20 ‘at’ stanford.edu.