Wreck[ed] Beach

Well, my original plan was to write about lovely Wreck beach, and how distracting and wondrous and difficult-to-climb-up-the-stairs-at-one-in-the-morning-in-the-dark as a tribute to the newly dubbed WBP.
And then it slushed. It's raining and snowing. All at once. And it's April. I realize that "April showers bring May flowers", but I will not be in Van to enjoy those flowers. I will be home where there will most likely be snow on the ground and everything will be in shades of gray. And what does Van do to say goodbye?! It slushes. As if it isn't becoming increasingly depressing enough every single day that classes and school and thinking stretch on and on and on.
On that note, is anyone else noticing the depression that's settling in? The I-can't-do-this-for-three-more-years? Right now, it just doesn't seem logical or plausible to be able to keep trudging through classes you only half like in order to get a degree that you're only half sure about. It seems even more logical when you start to realize that what you're working towards doesn't make you happy. And then there's the inevitable choice between happiness and money. And it's all pretty heavy when you haven't even hit your twenties yet.
School has become tedious. The constant regurgitation of what we've been learning is getting really difficult to maintain. I'm bored of it all.
It may just be the time of year (I would say Spring Fever, but we can all look outside and see THAT'S not true) but it seems to me that something needs to change about higher education. I don't think anyone really wants to pay to be tested and have to do all these things. I think people are paying to learn. Why isn't education better tailored to fit the student? Why can't science kids do labs that they actually find relevant instead of doing what I understand to be 'pointless' stuff and then really long exams? Why can't we Arts students just stick to our paper writing, or presentations, or high minded discussions? When Aristotle and Plato and all the great thinkers we're taught about were first going down the path of education, I don't think they had pop-quizzes. Back then it was about speculation and learning and rhetoric and discovery. It was the sharing of thoughts, not the duplication.
When did education become standardized? And when did we stop caring that it was?