Student Survival Guide, Part I
Greetings, Steve here, welcoming you to another edition of the When Reality Knocks Lifestyle and Technology guide. Today’s topic: The Student Survival Guide, Part I.
I’m just completing my second degree and have been in school for approximating 19000 years, so I have some experience in this area. It’s also why I can’t afford new socks.
With many high school students starting their first year of college in a few weeks, many of them have questions and concerns about course selection, exams and housing. This post will not help at all. It will, however, help with a few issues that actually matter, so let’s get started shall we?
A note to parents of first-year students: No doubt you’re concerned about what goes on on modern university campuses, wanting to know how your child will spend their time, how your hard-earned money is going to be spent. Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know. You think you want to know. You don’t want to know. You’ll be much happier if you imagine that your child has joined the broom hockey league and spends their Friday nights at Bible Study For Virgins.
Moving right along… First year students will find that in many ways University is not that different from High School, in the sense that you’re spending a huge amount of time learning skills that you will never, ever use in the real world. If you’re taking arts, that is. If you’re taking science, then you’ll be learning skills that will be in high demand, after you supplement them with an additional 5 to 10 years of graduate work. If you’re taking fine arts, like myself, you’ll be learning unique practical skills that no one is ever going to pay for. It’s kinda depressing, actually. I suggest you don’t think about it.
But that’s really where the similarities to high school end. The first thing to learn about university, is nobody cares if you sink or swim and nobody’s going to follow you around complaining that you haven’t handed in your assignments. The second thing is university costs more than the human mind can possibly comprehend and if just quit right now, you could live like a king forever in the Caribbean for the same amount of money. If you can deal with those two facts, then you’re half way there already.
Which leads us to our first issue: money. People will tell you that you have to have a budget and that you have to stick to it. University and student aid counselors will tell you that this will help you make it through university. These people have salaries. If you work all Summer and make $3000 or $4000 and then have to shell out 3 or 4 or 10 times that much for tuition, books, residence, etc., etc., then, let’s face it, your budget went out the window a long time ago. Your best bet is to minor in bank robbing. Thank you.
Most first-year students live in residence and dorm food takes some getting used to. Let’s just say, better hope you like pop tarts. If, like me, you have food sensitivities or allergies, you can relax. All modern university cafeterias are very accommodating and go to great lengths to make sure student’s special dietary needs are met. On paper. In reality, sometimes it would be a stretch to say anyone’s dietary needs are met. Better get a toaster.
There are many complicated but important ceremonies at university, unwritten rules that you must know to get through. The most important of these is declaring your major. Guidance counselors in high school make declaring your major sound like a major life decision, when in fact deciding what to concentrate in is the easy part. The hard part is the ceremony for declaring your major, but this simple guide will help you through. What you have to do is this: You go to the center of campus at noon on the second Thursday in September, when there’s the maximum number of people around. You put on a Shakespearean costume, transforming yourself into the Hamlet’s father or Lady Macbeth, depending on gender and personal inclination and have several others dress up as attendants, a herald with a huge horn, acrobats, jugglers and, for extra effect, peasant dancers. Obviously, it’s good to know someone in the theater department for this. Then, after your attendant blows the horn to announce your presence, with your jugglers juggling and your peasant dancers dancing, you say in your loudest voice:
“I {state your name} hereby solemnly declare that I, with a whole heart and of relatively solid mind and sense of purpose, will be taking bio-chemistry, with a minor in bank robbing, at this university, until the surges and toils of life guide me to another goal, or until death takes me. Or I actually graduate. Now who wants to get a beer?!”
See, it couldn’t be simpler! There are a number of other bits of insider info that I’ll be sharing tomorrow in Part II.