A couple Tuesdays ago I finally confronted a fact that I’d been avoiding for over a month: my orals were in four days away and I hadn’t studied one bit.

I like many of the texts I read as an English major, and I enjoy talking about these texts with other people.   It’s especially cool when: as with the Walter Pater book I mentioned in last week’s article: the stuff I’m required to read for a class has a significant impact on my life.

Even so, I’m generally not someone who enjoys schoolwork.   Whenever I’m in the library, hunched over a book or a laptop, I inevitably feel like there’s something more enjoyable that I could be doing.   The wonder of college is that we have so many options for how to spend our time: playing sports, partying, exploring the outdoors, watching movies with friends, attending campus speakers and student concerts.   In light of all these delightful alternatives, studying becomes an unpleasant chore, something that I have to get out of the way before I can enjoy the fleeting freedom that the weekend brings.

It was with this attitude that I forced myself to begin reading the text I was assigned to present for my orals, Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock.”   Initially I was resentful of the whole oral examination process.   Why are Whitman students the only ones required to take senior exams?   How is a painfully long eighteenth century poem about a woman’s lock of hair being a metaphor for her purity relevant to my life?

As I pored over the poem and researched numerous articles of criticism, something exciting happened: I began to develop an original idea about the poem that the countless literary scholars before me seemed to have overlooked.   I was still too bitter and stressed out to really enjoy myself, but I grudgingly became more interested in the work I was doing.

I awoke on the day of my Orals after three hours of fitful sleep and walked into my exam feeling unprepared and desperately anxious to finish the ordeal as quickly as possible.   However, as I gave my presentation and saw the encouraging smiles and nods of the professors on my panel, I realized that I really did have some good ideas about the poem.   I started to actually have fun.

Here I was, a lowly undergraduate, and these three brilliant, accomplished scholars, these people who had devoted their lives to the study of literature, seemed genuinely intrigued by my argument.

I expected the question session following my presentation to feel like an interrogation, but the interaction with my professors was more like a discussion between colleagues.   As I answered their questions I was surprised and pleased to find that I really knew the text.   It was affirming and confidence inspiring to realize that my own ideas could even approach the sophistication and insight of the professionals sitting across the table from me.

Preparing for my orals was a largely a stressful, unpleasant experience, but taking them was a beautiful moment in my life.   For almost an hour I had undivided attention and interest of three experts in my chosen field of study, and I had the opportunity to test not only myself, but also the quality of my Whitman education.

Often it’s not our most pleasurable experiences that prove to be the most memorable or worthwhile.   Instead it’s those moments where we find ourselves challenged: and we succeed: that turn out to be some of the most beautiful moments in our lives.