Though it's been ages since I've been to school, I still have regular nightmares about college. In one such nightmare, I'm taking a test. I haven't studied for this test. I haven't been to class at all. I can't answer a single question on the test. This happened to me so often in real life that it's not that scary. I usually wake up in a cold sweat right after my dream self decides to change his major to journalism. The second such nightmare has to do with never getting enough credits to graduate. If you are now a college student, or plan to become one soon, you will have this dream, too, and for the rest of your life. Having this terrible dream over and over again is the price you pay for being lucky enough to blow four or more of the best years of your life goofing off on a college campus instead of digging postholes somewhere. As nightmares go, though, it's pretty functional. It serves to remind me of the only real lesson I learned in college. Here it comes. I'll explain it again down below, just so you don't miss it.
The whole point of going to college is learning how to get out of college. There, now you know. Now you don't even need to enroll. Don't even bother getting a parking sticker. Go off and have a good life, secure in the knowledge that you've saved a fortune in tuition--yet still possess higher education's greatest lesson. In case you want to go to college anyway, the following is an explanation of several key points related to college life. I've arranged this glossary of terms alphabetically, more or less--the kind of task I went to college to perfect. As you will see, I've concentrated on the serious, scholarly elements of college life, based on true-life accounts from people who experienced it. During my stay at the university, I found time for nothing but horseplay and lollygagging, and have suffered accordingly ever since.
Academic major A student decides upon a career objective, then chooses his field of study. When confronted with difficult prerequisite classes (such as algebra, organic chemistry or Spanish 101), he changes his field of study. Later, when confronted with the prospect of a lifetime spent in pursuit of an aggravating, low-paying, dead-end career, he changes it again. This is when he calls dad and asks for a job in the mail room at work. Adjunct professor Some universities supplement their full-time teaching staffs with "professionals" from the "real world." These characters come to the task hoping to show the "young whippersnappers" a thing or two about "reality," but totally blow it once they get a look at all the young hardbodies in their class. Such "rent-a-profs" then spend most of their time telling glamorous "war stories" about "the business" to try to impress all the "babes" or "dudes" in the room. In case any journalism department heads are reading this, I'm available for such work. Attendance, class Here's some advice, kids: If you go to every single meeting of a class, I guarantee you will get a C. It won't matter if you do any of the assigned papers, or even study for any of the tests. If you show your face on a regular basis, you pass. I never tried this theory out myself, of course, but I'm pretty sure it works. Attendance, happy hour If you do somehow manage to go through a whole week attending all of your classes, even the biggest "grind" on campus would agree you deserve to blow off some steam. Reward yourself! Go drink six pitchers of beer and get in a fight with a biker gang. It's all part of growing up. Attendant, car wash Of course, if you reward yourself too regularly, this might be the job you'll end up with. Beer Not just a beverage. A way of life.
Cafeteria food Wise administrators have taken steps in the past couple of decades to improve the food served in the university setting. Now it is possible for students to dine on pleasing, contemporary fare, such as pizza, burgers, French fries and frozen yogurt. Still, it is occasionally possible to come across a serving of industrial meat loaf, prefab mashed potatoes or weird stew. Young people should take full advantage of this opportunity should it arise. Buy the item, observe it, perhaps photograph it. Only an idiot would eat it, though. "Cake" class Every campus has a class (or classes) known by all to be laughably easy. Also sometimes called "gut" classes, these courses are taught in a lecture hall by a kind old fellow who appears to have suffered brain damage. If you're having some doubt as to whether a particular class is a cake or gut, poke your head in some morning and take a look. If more than 20 percent of the seats are occupied, it is not a cake class. College loan If your folks aren't too filthy rich, you probably qualify for a loan to pay for college. The concept that government can enrich society by offering citizens a subsidy for higher education is somewhat flawed, in my opinion. For example, I had a college loan, and during the first draft of this story, I spelled the word "subsidy" like this: "subzidy." Plus, by the time you pay off your low-interest college loan or loans, you'll have long forgotten everything you paid for. And every payment will make you more bitter and hateful toward the government. Then your mood and intellect will deteriorate until you become an angry talk-radio host. I don't think we need any more of them, so my advice to you is avoid college loans if at all possible. Commencement exercises These are the motions your dad makes every time he reaches for his wallet. Reach and pay and reach and pay and-a one and-a two and-a reach and pay. After dozens of tuition checks are written, after all the credit-card bills are paid, after all the bail money is fronted, the shoulder muscles on pop's wallet side get to looking pretty beefy. Community college Community colleges can no longer be called "high schools with ashtrays." Smoking is now prohibited on most campuses.
Course load Four or five classes per semester is the average course load. I suggest you register for no fewer than ten, however, and then sort out your schedule around Halloween. By this time you will have identified the cakes and the guts.
Credit hour The point of getting a college education is not to "learn" or to "grow intellectually, spiritually and emotionally." The point is to accumulate enough credit hours to graduate, at which time you start working. The point of working is to accumulate enough pay to enable you to purchase lots of consumer goods. You accumulate consumer goods until you die. This is what life is all about, and one of the many things about it I wasn't taught in college. Dorm food I'll believe that dorm food has improved when I see a big decrease in pizza-delivery businesses in college towns. Drop/add registration It's okay to "drop" a class if, on the first day, the professor says he wants everybody to be his friend and call him "Jimmy." Other valid reasons to drop a class: essay tests, term papers and required language-lab time. English 101 Required of all university students, except engineering graduate assistants. This requirement also gives English-department graduate students--typically aspiring novelists and poets--something worthwhile to do. Most important, having to teach a couple of sections of English 101 greatly increases the field of potential dates for those same grad students.
Extracurricular activities Career counselors and personnel managers for large companies say that a healthy sampling of extracurricular activities always looks good on a resume. Sadly, this does not include your work as a lookout and getaway-car driver for the West Side Locos street gang.
Financial aid office Children of the unwealthy are sent here to wait in line, which is their punishment for not being born rich. Some of the people you see standing in these lines have been there since 1978. Foreign-language requirement The geniuses who designed higher education deemed it important for well-rounded grads to have some experience with a foreign tongue. It's not a bad idea, just very impractical. It's widely accepted that Americans can get by in most foreign countries by speaking English very slowly, in a louder-than-normal voice. Two years of college Spanish, French or German will only get the shit beat out of you in Spain, France or Germany. Freshman These are first-year students, easily identifiable because A) they buy all the required textbooks for every class, B) they go to every meeting of every class through mid-October at least, and C) they're the ones who use the bowling alley in the student union. Graduate assistants Most people get enough college during their first run-through. Others keep coming back for more. Go figure. Maybe they didn't get laid enough.
Junior Unlike sophomores, juniors are starting to realize that maybe all knowledge has not yet been revealed to them. Upper-division classes--taught by tenured professors and requiring lengthy papers, difficult computer work and/or really hard projects--are inflicted on students during their junior year, which makes it a popular time to change majors. Or consider the Peace Corps.
Lab-science requirement Like foreign language, a little science knowledge is a dangerous thing. Still, university curriculum builders seem to believe that everybody--even journalism majors--should be exposed to the scientific method. I exposed myself just long enough to side with the creationists: Blame it on the big guy in the clouds--it's easier than figuring it out.
Lecture hall A fine place for midday naps, especially during slide presentations. Liberal arts In my day, students who studied liberal arts had already surrendered to the notion that they'd never get rich. From what I understand, that goes for just about everybody these days. Except, of course, for those students who are already rich. Library That big building full of books near the center of campus. People who say they're going there to study are going there to be seen studying, and there's a big difference. Off-campus housing After a year or so of dorm life, during which your roommate repeatedly pukes on your shoes, living in an overpriced, one-bedroom dump in a run-down apartment complex a half-mile from campus sounds pretty good. Parking Always the number-one topic for conversation on campus. Liberal-arts students gab about the existential pain of finding a spot at 8 a.m. on a Monday. Engineering students talk about various fulcrum devices they could build to strangle whoever it is who oversells the parking stickers. Prelaw students talk about how they can get their parking tickets fixed. It's an old, old story. Pizza delivery A few of the lessons you learn in college stay with you for life. This is one of them: When in doubt, order in. Political-science majors The only college students who still consider the possibility that communism might be a good idea. Prelaw majors The only college students who still believe having a few more lawyers might be a good idea. Psychology majors The only college students who believe that human behavior can be explained. Premed majors The only college students who really study. You hope. Physical-education majors At what point do you decide that your life's work will be making other people do pushups? Roommate There's a good chance--even in this day and age--that you will, at some point during your college career, have a roommate who really, really, really likes old Black Oak Arkansas records. Go ahead and kill him. Senior Talk about torn! Do you finish your degree requirements and finally leave behind the safe (but ultimately boring, aggravating and expensive) haven of academia, or do you goof off for another year or two and avoid the horrors of the working world, circa 1991? Graduate school is an obvious solution, as is a late change of major. Reinstating the draft would make this decision a lot easier. Sophomore I've always wondered about the movie Animal House. Critics called it "sophomoric." It opened when I was a sophomore. A coincidence? I hardly think so. I still think it's the funniest movie ever made. Student-athletes An oxymoron used by athletic directors and sports broadcasters. Look for these guys when you're looking for gut classes.
Student bookstore Here is where you go to sell back textbooks. Bought new for a fortune, a book will break your heart at least twice. First, it will prove worthless as a study guide, especially if you wait until after Thanksgiving break to crack it. Second, it will almost always let you down at resale time. That is when you learn to really hate literature. Student newspaper A training camp for character assassins. Also traditionally a good place to score drugs. Study group Like-minded students often gather in such groups to study a particular subject. Most participants typically are motivated to attend such groups by the possibility that a late-night study session will end with all the participants forming into a big pile and having sex.
During my stay at the university, I found time for nothing but horseplay and lollygagging, and have suffered accordingly ever since.
If you go to every single meeting of a class, I guarantee you will get a C. It won't matter if you do any of the assigned papers, or even study.
A book will break your heart at least twice. It will prove worthless as a study guide. It will almost always let you down at resale time.
At what point do you decide that your life's work will be making other people do pushups?
Library: that big building full of books near the center of campus.
SILENTS ARE GOLDEN A LOCAL MOGUL FINDS A... v9-18-91
