Sleep in Class, Taught by Professor Kim by Ju Young

Sleep in Class, Taught by Professor Kim by Ju Young - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

College students are notorious for their outrageous, unbelievably unhealthy sleep schedules. Whether it’s sleeping only six hours, five hours, or not at all, college students make a habit of not sleeping enough. They certainly know the importance of getting at least eight hours of sleep, but life is demanding, so they often make do with a few hours, trying to make up for lost sleep during the weekends.

In this mess of a sleep cycle, I see an opportunity to extract valuable data about the human body and its relationship to sleep. In “Get Credit to Sleep in Class,” students will literally be awarded credits to sleep through class periods. The class would be split into two groups, and the groups will alternate weeks in which they sleep through the class period. Each time the class meets, one group performs experiments and conducts research, using the other group as their test subjects. The possibilities are endless. Students could pursue a wide range of topics, from how much sleep can improve scores on a motor skills test to a special pillow’s effect on reducing snoring. The results would then be analyzed and compiled into meaningful information that can be presented and published. As the professor, I would aid students in developing the best project designs. I would also ensure that all calculations and mathematical operations are accurate. Students would have immense freedom to ask their own questions and work on areas that they find to be relevant and interesting. Students would both collect and interpret their data, making decisions about how they want to move forward with their projects with few restrictions. I would provide feedback and advice on any questions that they have, but leave all decision making power in their hands, allowing students to make their own path in their pursuit to find out everything they can about sleep.

In the course guide, this class is just another applied statistics class. But in practice, it’s a learning laboratory, meant to give students the means to make their learning useful for their community and for themselves. Granted, this is rather unconventional, but the class format serves a good purpose. It gives students the opportunity to apply their learning and even present it in an exhibition that will mark the culmination of the class.

Memorizing formulas for hypothesis tests and reading chapter after chapter in a dry, humorless textbook will only serve to drive students away from the importance of statistics. Students learn and retain information best when they use it, so through “Get Credit to Sleep in Class,” statistics will become engraved in their minds, giving them practical experience and data to apply in their lives.