What I've learned in college. And you can too!

College. *Sigh* First I'd like to note that there is nothing I love more than the smell of fresh minds in the morning on campus. After that initial whiff of yesterday's vomit outside your building passes, the pleasant aroma of intellectual inquiry stings the nostrils like smelling salts leaving you feeling ready for the day. There really is nothing better than that first day of class, though. That first glance about the room, is anyone attractive? That quick assessment and initial judgment that you make about the odd smelling kid in the front row with all of the required texts neatly stacked in chronological order next to his 5 subject notebook that is opened to the first page, screaming to be scribbled on with useless notes on the professors likes and dislikes in order to make for easy schmoozing in the days to follow. When that 6 page syllabus falls into your eager hands it's like seeing the sky for the first time, beautiful and curious. Your eyes scan the assignments...until finally you land on that bold faced statement: THIS IS A DISCUSSION CLASS, PARTICIPATION WILL BE REQUIRED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO PASS.

You know, I have no problems with Prof's giving me their syllabus and their little statements about their respective course and why they are still teaching it after 15 years at the same University and still on their starting salary. It's a positive thing to tell me what is due and when it is due... But when teachers start to make Nazi like statements in bold and italic font in order to instill fear in their students, I get a little peeved. My ultimate favorite is when they try to justify all of their particular requirements for the class. "No food or drink, I've had bad experiences in the past when I used to allow both, it proved to be too disruptive to the class dynamic."

.....really? What, did every member of your 15 person class bring in a giant bag of frito lays and constantly suck their nearly empty bottle of soda through a straw for 55 minutes? I find it hard to believe that your "dynamic", as you call it, (I prefer, "your mundane lecture voice") was pushed out of balance by the crackling sound of tasty chips and 70 oz slurpies. It is more likely that your students needed SOMETHING to do inside this concrete filled, windowless, soulless classroom while you droned on about the importance of being a 'close reader'.

Everytime I encounter one of these I ponder to myself: what would MY course syllabus consist of? If I were to hand out a sheet containing every little detail about my class, what would I say? How would I say it? I've come up with the following:

Fill-In-The-Blank 101
3004 Windowless Room in dark dingy basement of 1950's style building
Taught By Me
Office Hours: I pretty much play computer games all day so feel free to drop by with a query or joke-of-the day and enough half-way decent food for two.

Required Reading: All Online
$0 if you print from the faculty printer upstairs, password: 394958 (You didn't hear this from me)

Policies: If you wanna drink Jack Daniels straight from the bottle then you go ahead. Just don't speak unless spoken too because you're drunk ass will have nothing of importance to add to my philosophical rantings. If you bring food, be prepared to share with me. I don't take attendance but then again, I still get paid if you don't show so I leave your attendance in your hands. Snacks sign-up sheet to be passed out on 2nd day of class.

Half of this semester will be spent hammering down one half of the concrete wall in the direction of daylight so that we don't all fall into a deep and irreversible depression.

The second half will be spent trying to catch up... which is basically what any normal professor does anyways during the 2nd half of the semester. So technically we'll be right on track.

Participation is only granted when I have decided that you are smart enough to open your mouth and you can be trusted to put sentences together coherently.

The rest is TBA.


Peace.

Prof Me.