By Alycia Smith
I hate this school.
No really. I’ve got dozens, if not hundreds, of reasons why this is a terrible school, but since they continue to give me money under no conditions of physical exertion – and I am one lazy person – I am still enrolled here.
The example I would like to complain about in this column is the freshman speech class I’m taking this semester. I was registering for classes, minding my own business, when a thought struck my mind. “Hey,” said the thought, poking something in my left lobe, “you should take the honor’s version of the class, so as to have a smaller amount of students and hence more student-teacher interaction. It’s sure to be a blast!”
Well silly me, I decided to go with this random thought and registered for the prestigious “honor’s” version of Communications 111. It’s a required class, so I had to take it sooner or later, but I figured it’d be more interesting this way.
Christ, was I ever wrong on that.
Granted, I have made a few friends because of the class, but we are only joined together by our fervent hatred for the teacher, the syllabus, and EVERYTHING ELSE WE MUST PAINFULLY ENDURE FOR THREE HOURS CREDITS.
Firstly, I should mention that for some reason, our honor’s professor dropped out of teaching the class, and his replacement is not quite up to par.
I expected few things from this class. I expected that we would choose our own topics for speeches, that being an honor’s class would somehow force a higher level of intrigue in the speeches, and that my professor would have some semblance of an idea as to how to teach a class.
Obviously, I over-estimated some people in charge around here.
Ok, so the teacher is the head of the debate team, and I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t even have a problem with him talking about the debate team periodically, even though I have no interest in it. But I DO have a problem with the whole class being used as his research team. We’re supposed to find some lucky sponsor in a random city that might give funding towards our debate team and its scholarship program.
So now I have to spend years of my precious life calling random companies in Seattle, explaining to them that I am a slave to UofL’s debate team – however indirectly – and trying to con them into setting up a scholarship so kids in Seattle can come to UofL to argue about whatever debate teams argue about. All because this one guy has got it in his head that the only subjects college students will give speeches on are: religion, alcohol, and sex.
This will teach me to listen to random thoughts that enter my mind of their own volition. Especially ones that suggest I trust the billions of fliers that the Honor’s Program sends me in the mail. If the classes were really that great, would they have to send out billions of fliers?
Maybe my expectations were too high for this class. After all, it is a freshman course. Maybe it’s my fault for not being able to take it last year.
At any rate, what I’ve learned from this experience is to be even MORE paranoid than I already am. I must convince myself that UofL, the honor’s program, and the communications department are ALL out to get me, and that should I begin to consider registering for yet another “great idea,” then I should instantly beat myself in the head with something heavy and forget about it. I must realize that fear and suspicion are my two greatest allies.
But at least I can warn you, my fellow students, about all this. Our school has been infiltrated by Nazis who get kicks out of making college freshmen research debate teams in Seattle and Providence.
I have no doubt the frat boys have something to do with this.
