February 08, 2024 | OPINION | By Zeke Lloyd
Tours of campus end in a small, grassy space between Cutler Hall and Worner Student Center. Under the shade of the minuscule quad’s lone tree, guides share the reason they came to Colorado College. In the moments afterward, they open the space for questions from the visitors. And, inevitably, students and parents make some covert attempt to discern if the Block Plan is a hoax.
It was the most common question I heard in my two-and-a-half years working as a tour guide. The query took on a variety of forms. Guests rarely ask outright. But without fail, in a long-winded attempt to dance around the specifics, the skepticism manifested as inquiry: Does the Block Plan work?
I am inclined to say “no” (although I never said that on a tour). After three-and-a-half years as a student here, I have found evidence to indicate that the unique schedule presents no merit over our semester school counterparts. If every Block convened for its full three hours and assigned a regular amount of homework relative to the time spent in class (the American system adopts a standardized ratio of roughly one hour of homework for two credit hours of classtime), our course loads would run parallel to non-Block Plan institutions.
But of the 33 blocks I’ve taken, fewer than half began at 9:00. Classes with a later start time rarely went past noon. Depending on the department, daily homework could range from five hours to fewer than 30 minutes. Projects, truncated by a due date never more than four weeks out, are more often submitted as outlines instead of finished products.
Presentation assignments stand out as the most infamous. I have witnessed a huge variety in quality across students’ PowerPoints and Google Slides. The days of class dedicated to presentations often produce a marathon of tedium as unmotivated students vomit assorted facts and theories.
In all fairness, I started college in the pandemic and studied economics. As such, I have limited evidence to indicate Block Plan academics have outright failed to teach and instruct. Instead, I charge the system with an intellectual misdemeanor: inconsistency.
It is something I didn’t fully understand until recently but something I first learned before I enrolled. As a high school senior quarantined in my house in the late spring of 2020, I chatted with a junior at CC to learn about the college. When I asked how Blocks can remain so different in substance but similar in difficulty, the student laughed—they do not.
Just a few months later, I told the Career Center that I wanted to learn more about six different majors I was interested in. Ranging from ecology to economics, computer science to creative writing, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my time at CC.
Now, seven semesters later, I still don’t know. Fareed Zakaria, weekly columnist at The Washington Post and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, wrote in his book that a “liberal education should give people the skills ‘that will help them get ready for their sixth job, not their first job.’”
With my sixth job, I want to be a late-night television host. But Zakaria is right—I have no idea about the first five.
Our classes provide little, if any, concrete understanding of pragmatism. Even so, my cognitive dissonance about proselytizing the Block Plan remained at a minimum because I felt that our system was self-correcting.
The best part of CC’s system isn’t three-hours-a-day in the afternoon, it’s the other 21 hours which remain at the disposal of students. I gave over 100 tours. My greatest challenge was conveying that sentiment.
I couldn’t tell proud parents and prospective students about how the school failed to provide me with a consistently high level of academic rigor. I couldn’t tell visitors I found hard knowledge, facts, and figures from textbooks, beyond the true benefits of undergraduate education.
So, when asked if the Block Plan works, I delicately try to let them know it does. And that you should not look in the classroom. Who knows what you might find there.
Instead, look in black box theaters and on early morning ski buses. Look in meeting rooms during dusk or dance halls after dark. Look out at the quad around lunchtime or inside the library in the early afternoon. You’ll find the Block Plan alive and well.