The Paradox of Choice Format
By AARYAN PATEL‘27 and ANDREW YANG ‘27
When course registration opens, one of the most crucial decisions for many students is not which classes or sports to enter but rather when to take their choice format. The choice format which replaces a student’s sports block with a free block in any one term throughout the year is utilized by many. Most students believe that choice format will allow them to improve their academic and/or extracurricular performances. However, a closer look at the effects of choice format shows that these expectations are rarely met.
At an extremely academically rigorous institution such as Exeter, most students have schedules full of classes, sports, and club meetings. In the occasional case when a student has a free block, the last thing they want to do is study for their upcoming tests or do their homework. They need a break. Thus, some students with a choice format don’t use the 2-hour free block to improve their academics or extracurriculars. Most students would rather save their work for the night and spend their free time in other ways. Generally, these students who don’t use their choice format for academics or extracurriculars do one of two activities: self-care or scrolling on their phones.
Some Exonians perform self-care during their choice formats to improve their health and social lives, whether this be spending time with friends in Grill or going back to their dorm rooms for a midday nap. Some Exonians don’t get enough sleep, so spending their choice format to recharge is a completely reasonable use of their time. Admittedly, recharging is beneficial to work efficiency, but, in turn, these Exonians have the same amount of time to spend on academics or extracurriculars as Exonians who didn’t sign up for choice format. To some extent, this free block is not used as it was intended to be.
Many of the remaining students can be categorized into the “scrollers.” After getting out of a difficult test or a long-block harkness discussion many students want to relax. How do they do this? Social media. Something as simple as opening Instagram on their phone to check their friends’ stories can lead to over an hour of scrolling through content. Needless to say, this decision is a complete betrayal of these students’ initial goals regarding choice format. All they are getting are rushes of dopamine that decrease their attention span and suck away precious time they can use for self-care or spending time on their academics or extracurriculars.
However, not everyone falls into these categories. Instead of blindly selecting a term for their choice format, students often coordinate it with terms that they take challenging courses or will have more extracurricular commitments. Despite using their free time to work on their goals, they still do not achieve them at least in the way they expected. When most Exonians say they would like to improve their academics they don’t mean to learn better or take challenging courses, they mean to get better grades. These students who combine high course rigor and choice format may not improve their grades. There is a misconception that having more time to study leads to better grades. Having more time to study does not guarantee that one will be more productive or focused when working. Since understanding concepts is key to learning at Exeter, the amount of time that one focuses on studying, not the amount of time one has, correlates with grades.
In conclusion, when students sign up for a choice format, it is crucial to address any misconceptions they have about choice format. By understanding the paradox of choice formatting, students can more realistically assess how to use their free time and create the schedule that best suits their needs, leading to a better learning experience.