Most of my disdain for first-years is due to my intense resentment of any and all fun that they may be having. I wasn't allowed to have fun in my first year, so why should they? ("Allowed" may not be the most accurate choice of words, but the overall outcome is the same.) I curse their carefree, perpetually excited well-adjustedness. ATTENTION FIRST-YEARS: Wipe that stupid grin off your face, learn to share the sidewalk (four people walking with arms interlocked = unacceptable), and for God's sake stop hogging all the advisors because apparently we are experiencing a shortage and some of us need them more than you.
It's that time of year again. (Which is to say it's one of the nine months out of the year during which one is at college...) Freshman season is upon us, and after only one week of their presence and fewer than two direct interactions with any of them I am already severely annoyed with all of them. Yes, ALL. I am not afraid to make an enormous generalization based solely on their year. My annoyance encompasses every last one of them. (Except maybe the two that I know personally. They're alright.) I know, I know- We were all first-years once, it just takes some adjusting, they don't mean to be obnoxious, blah blah kumbaya peace and understanding blah. Not this year. As a third-year I believe it is my right to make blanket statements about the inconveniences that they are. Such is the hierarchy of academia, the circle of life, natural selection and whatnot. You don't see sharks giving minnows directions to the Special Collections Library, do you? I didn't think so.
Most of my disdain for first-years is due to my intense resentment of any and all fun that they may be having. I wasn't allowed to have fun in my first year, so why should they? ("Allowed" may not be the most accurate choice of words, but the overall outcome is the same.) I curse their carefree, perpetually excited well-adjustedness. ATTENTION FIRST-YEARS: Wipe that stupid grin off your face, learn to share the sidewalk (four people walking with arms interlocked = unacceptable), and for God's sake stop hogging all the advisors because apparently we are experiencing a shortage and some of us need them more than you. It's a shiny new day, and I've decided to take the fabulous Tim Gunn's advice and "make it work." At this juncture, "making it work" involves scrounging for 6 more credit hours for the semester in order to not incur academic probation, catching up on the reading for the classes I missed before I knew I would be taking them, and continuing to NOT PANIC. So far I'm two for three. (Surprisingly, the lack of credits is the only outstanding issue of concern. The panic is strangely under control for the time being.)
Trying to find available classes five days after they've started is like picking through the remnants of a piñata after dozens of sugar-crazed children have already mutilated its sad, broken carcass: all that's left is gum wrappers, paper mache innards, and some Good & Plenties. (Because let's face it- no one under the age of 70 actually likes Good & Plenties.) Of course, it doesn't help that the school's new course enrollment system was designed to be as difficult to use as possible while maintaining the appearance of simplicity. It's like it was created by a rocket scientist with the purpose of being used by kindergardeners. Can we please go back to the days of carbon paper and abacuses? (Abacai? I should look that up.) I would suggest they offer a course on how to use the online enrollment system, but I probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to sign up for it. At this point, all the good classes are taken and we're left with the dregs, unless you can find a sleeper class, a feat I have accomplished only once in my college life. Down to the wire, it looks like my options are a Slavic Folklore course called "Ritual Demonology" (You didn't even know we had a Slavic Folklore department, did you?), SWAG 2559: Women's Lives in Myth and Reality ("SWAG" = Studies in Women and Gender), and an Intro to Urdu course. As fun as it would be to be able to say, "Why, yes, I speak Urdu. Do you Urdu too?" I'm leaning towards the SWAG class if only because "SWAG" is such a fun course mnemonic (not to be confused with "pneumonic," which means of or relating to pneumonia- fun fact). On a sadder, less grammatical note, allow me to share with you the unfortunateness of my textbook-buying experience this semester. The university bookstore hates students. We are nothing but walking, talking dollar signs to them, and they rip us off at every opportunity. This year I decided to take matters into my own hands and buy my books online. (Radical, I know.) Regrettably, this was also the year I decided I did not want to be in the Education School. If you haven't connected the dots yet, I shall explain. The bookstore had posted a list of ten books that were "required" for my Content Area Reading class in the Ed School. Wanting to be prepared for the first week of class, I went online and purchased all of these books (used) from various sellers. Then I went to the first class for this course, at which the professor started out by saying, "I hope none of you bought all these books. Did you?" (I learned the hard way that you should NOT raise your hand at questions like this, even if you think you should.) She proceeded to explain that we only needed to read ONE book from the list of ten, and that the bookstore was supposed to indicate this on the printout. (Which, apparently, they did, but in some kind of sneaky bookstore code so I couldn't understand it.) I was only slightly concerned by this situation seeing as I had, for the most part, already resolved to withdraw from the Education School. And so I await the deluge of individually shipped text books that will soon be piling up in my mailbox (which, it's worth noting, is about .3 miles and 75 stairs away from my dorm room), mocking me with every single e-mail notification of their arrivals. Dear World, learn from my mistakes: Don't buy ten books that you can't return for a class that you haven't been to yet. Today is the day I became a collegiate delinquent.
Twenty years old, a third-year (that's "junior" for you normal people) at a prestigious university that some would probably kill to get into, and the reality is beginning to set in that I may, in fact, end up working at the 7-11. (If I'm lucky.) Because today I decided to, as my brother put it, "abandon ship," which is to say I am withdrawing from the School of Education at my university and have absolutely no idea where to go from here. (You can see the flaw in my plan, or lack thereof.) The School of Education is a renowned teacher education program which I excitedly applied to (there was a form and everything- very official) that would have earned me a Masters in teaching, complete with an in-demand profession, a bright future, and summers off. But I turned all that down in a fleeting moment of clarity during my first real Education class when I suddenly found myself thinking, "What am I doing here?" Finally I let myself think all the terrifying thoughts I had suppressed since my entry into the Education School: I don't want to teach. I hate speaking in front of people. High schoolers scare me. Kids these days have guns and knives and homophobia and misdirected resentment for authority figures. And I don't do well with children, so that rules out elementary ed. (They're cute, but they're like aliens to me. I just don't understand them. Which is odd, since I was one. But I digress.) And as I'm thinking THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA and trying not to burst into tears, which would no doubt alarm the friendly new acquaintance sitting next to me whom I've just learned from another ridiculous getting-to-know-you exercise (the Ed School loves these) has a brother and thinks blue is an above-average color, I feel a sense of relief come over me. And I don't care what my sweet and diminutive professor is saying because I will never come back to this class again. And I will never take the boring American History 201 class that they required I take IN ORDER TO TEACH SPANISH. (Seriously- how ridiculous is that?) My startling realization brought on a new wave of panic as I contemplated what do I do now? So you're an Ed School dropout. Now what? This wouldn't be an issue if I was a naive young freshman with my whole college career ahead of me and semesters worth of fucking-up to do, or even a spry-but-weathered sophomore, but, no. I am over the halfway point. And classes started yesterday. This means that all the nice classes I would now be free to take are already beyond full of smart, happy little people who know exactly what they're doing with their lives. And then there's me: jumping off the boat without a raft or an island or even a floating door like in 'Titanic.' And it would appear I do not know how to swim because I'm drowning in this enormous ocean, but at least I won't miss 'The Office' every Thursday this semester because my Thursday night class has just become irrelevant, along with 5 of my 11 other credits for the semester and 8 of my credits from last year. I tell myself, lots of Spanish majors graduate and find jobs and become successful. Surely there will be a job for me somewhere. (And don't call me Shirley.) I mean, it's not like the economy is bad or anything... So this is the story of how I found myself suddenly without a future and how my college conspired against me. |