The thing I love about this time of year is the overpowering urge to read. I realize there are two shocking aspects of this statement. One, that there is something to love about slushy, foggy, windy Iowa, and two, that a college student would have an insatiable desire to read.I used to go through a phase every winter where I would re-read Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.” Just when I was feeling like I was surviving on the fringe of civilization (read: Emmetsburg), the story of “the original hippie” living on a pond in a cabin he built himself was pretty inspiring. Also, the chapter on ants seemed to provide reassurance that spring would eventually come. The main attraction to “Walden,” however, was the concept that one could just hole up for the winter, hibernate a little and read a lot of books without feeling compelled to venture out for business. I can just hear the voices now. “Read? We don’t have time to read in college!” Many of my friends are frustrated at the suggestion, saying that every waking moment is filled with the industrious pursuit of a degree. All I can say to that is “Yeah, right. I know you spend an hour between classes pretending to read the Daily, or you sleep in until two on Saturdays and spend the rest of the day on the couch.” I am always a bit touchy whenever I ask someone what their favorite book is and they say something like, “I guess it is ‘Where the Red Fern Grows.’ That was the last book I read because it was assigned in seventh grade.” Maybe I’m just bitter because when I was growing up, my parents only let PBS come into the house, so if you wanted something more exciting than The New Yankee Workshop, you had to pick up a book. In some regards, college has been a bit disappointing. So many classes I have had seem to annihilate any desire to read, unceremoniously stamping out any motivation to crack a book. Reading has been skewed into a chore rather than a tool. Books have transformed from those engaging, exciting friends to a beginning-of-semester expense and a semester-long irritant on your desk. You know what I’m talking about. First, there is residual bitterness about having to pay around $100 to own your textbook, and then you learn your professor takes great delight in making you memorize minutiae. Not only are you incapable of simply reading the book to learn the material, paranoia and resentment take over. The night before the test goes something like this.”This (insert vivid adjective) professor is so crazy! Why should I have to commit every caption in this (insert another colorful descriptor) book to memory? It’s not like I’m going to remember it anyhow.” Such is the sad byproduct of college reading. The formula begins with dreaded obligation, is increased by a factor of apprehension and allowed to grow exponentially until the distaste for reading approaches infinity. In a culture where reading and literature appreciation is increasingly obsolete, college should be the place where the desire to read is cultivated, and the habit of voluntarily expanding our horizons and broadening our interests is encouraged.My liberal arts classes have been the salvation of my literacy. I have found that upper-level classes with about 20 students and a professor that knows your name are optimal. Usually, they assign books more exciting than the “VCR manual” genre of literature available in your typical science class, and the professor may actually allow you to express what you have read by synthesizing the information in a report or an essay instead of a bubble sheet. If you feel like you are spending all your time in college doing tedious work and not learning how to think in disciplines unrelated to your major, it is probably time to sign up for a good elective or start reading for fun.I like to harass my friends, engineering majors in particular, by sending out a giant summer reading list at the end of the spring semester. Usually I include a message about what schmoes they are if they do not read anything over summer break and try to goad them into picking up a book. I am not sure my method is effective, but I appease my conscience by steering them in the right direction.Do not let your college classes obliterate your other interests and your innate need to learn things unconnected to your major or your job. Literacy is more than mastering words on a page; it is a way to live. Rachel Faber is a senior in agronomy from Emmetsburg.