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Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 |
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Avoiding Your Education
IAN MORRISON
COLUMNIST
It was on my freshman Pre-O that Dean Craig Bradley looked me in the eye and told me: "Don't spend the next four years of your life avoiding your education." My gut told me that it wasn't very good advice. Indeed, at that moment the dizzying cloud of uncertainty and self-doubt that had shrouded my vision of the future lifted. I saw exactly what I would do for the next four years. Dean Bradley might have said more, but I was no longer listening so I can't be sure: I had already resolved to avoid my education.
Let's set the record straight: being a willing participant in your own education is the fastest way to graduation; this, in turn, is the fastest way to unemployment, which is like dying but with more late night television and Cheese-Nips. Anyone who has experienced either state can verify this. Avoiding your education is the only way to preserve the state of grace students enjoy. As long as you learn nothing, you will remain in a constant state of needing to be educated. Thus, when your time is up at Bowdoin you will be forced to enroll in some other schooling. This cycle can continue indefinitely.
There are many ways to avoid your education. One of the most common ways is to simply occupy your time with a thriving party life. Knowing that beer and books do not go hand-in-hand-largely because neither have either-some avoid their education by choosing booze over brains, flasks over facts, and tequila over the ability to alliterate.
However, I'm not here to encourage the student body to drink; the bitter cold does that for me. Moreover, there are more constructive and legal ways of avoiding your education, including many systems the College has in place expressly for this purpose. For information on the Pass/Fail grading system, see page 31 of the College handbook. I'd like to explore another of these systems: the offering of "Ehh" classes.
Essential to avoiding your education is the "Ehh" class, the kind of class you can't avoid shrugging at but can certainly avoid going to. Preferably, the course should meet three times a week. This allows you to miss one day and still receive 66.6 percent of the lecture. Trigonometrically speaking, 66.6 percent is a "Pass." There is no need to go to more than two classes per week. After all, you can "Pass" while high, but there is no such thing as a "High Pass." Aim for one, not the other.
"Ehh" classes are designated by a leading "0" in their course number. As for the other two numbers, remember: less is more. Here are some previous hits: Archeology 013: Digging, Physics 017: Fig Newton, English 002: Sometimes Y?
You might be offended at the implication that Bowdoin is a school for underachievers, would-bes and not-quites. I am not saying this at all; the fact that the school doesn't require SATs says that for me. Take a look at yourself: you're only reading this article because you want to look like one of those clever paper-readers, but you don't understand the political articles. I need not kick an obviously dead horse, obviously.
"Ehh" classes are not exempt from the College's rigorous standards of quality. Many proposed "Ehh" classes were turned down by the sub-100 faculty team, or SOFT. In fact, I know of two that were cancelled just this week. The first, ES 028: Bush's Plan to Stop Global Warming, was cancelled due to a lack of material. The second, English 014: "Which" or "That"? was cancelled due to the nonstop confusion which (that?) had occurred since the start of the semester.
Some "Ehh" classes were cancelled prior to course registration for political reasons. For example, Archeology 042: Stealing Cultural Treasures and Placing Them on Display in the British Museum was eliminated from the course catalog (as it should have been from this article) due to the implied accusation of wrongdoings by the only nation on speaking terms with the U.S. (As an aside: does anyone know when the "Treasures of Iraq" exhibit will open?)
Finally, many "Ehh" classes scheduled for this semester were cancelled due to tight budget constraints. Archeology 013: Digging was cancelled after the course professor requested an acclimated greenhouse that could simulate "pleasant, tropical-like environments in which it would be necessary to wear sun hats and khaki." The school had already paid for the slave labor that would do the actual digging; the greenhouse seemed frivolous.
By now you should be well up to speed on utilizing the "Ehh" classes designed by the school to help you avoid your education. Remember to check that box next to the Pass/Fail option. And take Fridays off.
For information on sending a letter to the editor, please click here.
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