As a student, I thought it fitting that I write something about, well, school-y things. From my wise and learned position of being finished with a staggering total of two years of college….I have a quite a bone to pick with certain, shall we say, bureaucratic snafus.
With the harrowing tales of budget cuts and university downsizing, accounts are pouring in of students who sign online to register for classes only to find out that the last one available is a seminar on Roman hygiene, disguised as Classics 25 1/2. For many of you, time is getting short–almost too short to stuff in the last generic requirement or vitally important, degree-altering seminar. What, then, is the solution to your registration problems? Storm the chancellor’s residence with an torch-bearing mob? I’d rather not get my Rainbows dirty, thanks. They’ve lasted me this long. Besides, why not bypass the local fuzz and go straight to the top–straight to the ones who have the real power–UPPERCLASSMEN.
There you are. The well-kept secret of public universities. When it comes to scheduling classes and pressuring authority, the upperclassmen are your man….er…men…er…persons. You see, they are gifted with the peculiar ability to acquire a sign-up time that is, inevitably, earlier than yours. Unlike the somewhat ripened members of our schools’ boardrooms, however, they can’t be ruled by pathetic attempts at force or persuasive rhetoric. They be fierce. They be cutthroat. They be…hungry.
Bribe them. That’s your key to success. And don’t bribe them with free tickets or offers to follow them around with a TI-89 and calculate their chances of a good test curve (although, that last one gives me ideas, and anything with the word “free” in it is appealing as long as it doesn’t also contain the words “appendectomy” or “copies of Ann Coulter books”). It’s Newton’s 4th law. The longer you stay in school, the more you are wooed by the promise of free food.
So, here’s the deal. Use those extra meal swipes you convinced your parents you’d need (don’t even pretend like you eat 19 times per week in that sinkhole you term a ‘dining hall’) and pawn them off to upperclasspersons in exchange for their earlier registration time. Unethical? Not at all. Chances are that the kid who is shelling out his sign-up time for midnight snacks doesn’t need it anyway. Take a class on ethics and you’ll see I’m right. Oh, wait. It’s probably filled already by people with fewer morals and more ambition. Too bad.
One caveat–don’t waste a meal swipe on a class that isn’t required for your major or that is offered multiple times throughout the year. And don’t trade with upperclasspersons who approach you first. They are weasels. Avoid them. Oh, and good luck. If you’re an underclassperson, someday you’ll learn the glorious art of mooching. Until then, exploit, exploit, exploit. It’s what we’ve gleaned from bureaucracy.
This blog has been edited to include the following:
After reading a few comments, I realized I had neglected to mention the most important part–Vegetarian upperclasspersons. One word: salads. They’re great; don’t eat the dressing, it’s bad for you.
On a more practical note, what I really left out was how exactly the switcheroo is effected. Like most campuses, my own school runs registration based on ID numbers. When you succeed in bribing an upperclassperson with the tantalizing aroma of lunch gratis, the key is to have them use their sign-up time to enroll in the class you need while you use yours to enroll in a dummy substitute (or one of their classes that you can actually get into). Once you’ve reached your registration time and chosen a filler class, have them drop your necessary class while you wait like a rabid vulture for the space they’ll be opening. If you happen to enroll in a class they want, do the same for them–in essence, just switch.
The End.
