Education: a time for work or a time for play?

Today I had a meeting with my new faculty adviser. She is the type of person that would memorize the dictionary and feel inclined to hand everyone she comes in contact with a list of words they must know in order to "survive in the real world". Thus, going into this meeting, I knew she was actually going to advise me on what I should be taking next quarter, rather than just nodding her head when I listed the classes I wanted to take.
I was looking forward to reading some more Proust. My first attempt was hearty but short-lived. Proust is a toughy. Although I enjoyed the parts I had the time to study, I figured a true delving would have to wait until retirement. Then this class appeared like a twenty dollar bill on the ground; what an opportunity. There is nothing like a ten-week course to force you through something you know you should be hit with.
I also thought The Tales of Genji would be a nice followup to my travels in Japan this summer. The prospect of reading two huge novels, I admit, did cause me to recoil at first, but after War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov in one quarter, nothing could compare.
I am desperately trying to finish all my French courses for the double major before I graduate, however my hope was growing dim when I looked at the course offerings and saw a grammar course I need to take, one course I took abroad, one course that looked interesting but was in English and conflicted with the grammar course, and a few classes on random topics that did not intrigue me at all.
I have already given up continuing with Greek next year. Falling behind every other day because I can only attend half the classes is getting annoying. Luckily I didn't have to actually make this decision because Greek 14 was canceled due to budget cuts and lack of professors to go around.
The fact that I forgot my advising slip, already detailing out which courses I wanted to take, was probably not helpful to the situation.
In any case, my adviser sat down with me and began by asking me what track I was on. Upon hearing I was on the creative writing track, headed for a Creative Writing MFA program, she proceeded to list off classes I had yet to even hear of that I had to take.
Experimental Prose sounds really cool, but conflicts with my French grammar class.
The Memoir class also sounds really great, but I've already taken a memoir class.
French Grammar is not required for my minor but I have this fantasy of taking all the classes for the French major and just not receiving a diploma with a double-major on it because I don't want to take Writing 2.
Literature and Visual Art does not interest me at all, but apparently that means I should take the class because it will expand my horizons.
I trudged home and attempted to fix my schedule, molding into the new, reformed, advised version of me, only to find that all the classes I was going to switch in to conflicted with one another.
After an hour of toiling over department course listings and GOLD searches modified by instructor, days of the week and times, I finally ended up with the following schedule:

Comparative Literature 188: Narrative Studies M W 12:30-1:45

CCS Literature: Experimental Prose T R 1-2:30

CCS Literature: Memoir TR 2:30-4

Twelve units seems measly, and perhaps I will add one more. I did sent an insistant email to the professor of that Lit and Visual Art class in french. Maybe I'll get in to that despite my lack of prereqs.

All this has made me think:

• Is school meant to be fun, or to be purposeful but not necessarily enjoyable.

• Does your education mean more if you take classes you're not interested in just to challenge yourself?

• Just because you take classes you want to take, does that mean you aren't being challenged?

• Are you wasting your money if you take classes because you're told to?

CCS sure breeds us to think so, but not all professors adhere to the same ideology.
So, I made a compromise, signing up for one class I'm not particularly thrilled about while also taking a few classes I really want to take. It will just figure when I find the classes I am eager about totally suck and the class I thought I wouldn't like is the best class I've ever taken.

It would just figure.