An assignment I couldn't complete...

In class the other day, a classmate was relating to another that they had to "level up to 10" for homework that night. They were lamenting the fact that they were being required to invest time in World of Warcraft for their digital arts class.

Apparently, in an attempt to justify the digital world (in this case, the "world" of Warcraft) as an art form, the professor charged each student with creating an in-game character and completing the tasks required to get that character to level 10.

Sure, this sounded interesting enough, especially when I thought back to the "A Life Well Wasted" where a Stanford program was in the business of recording the ends of digital worlds. Despite all that interest though, I could never bring myself to World of Warcraft, and if a professor were up front about such an assignment, I probably would have dropped the class at the beginning of the semester. I don't think grinding should EVER be part of any curriculum. I don't want to do it in my games and I don't want to do it in my academic career.

While I wish my fellow student luck in his grinding and grading, I don't envy that assignment at all.