Shenanigans What I've learned at Middlebury

Author: Alex Garlick

The numbers are staggering: seven semesters on campus, three J-terms, $159,870.50 in tuition, fees, parking tickets, and deposits, thousands of printer pages that Count Paper is fretting over and a GPA that would have been sterling if my Spanish was "bueno" (sadly, it was "mucho mal"). However, there is no way to put a number on the amount I have learned here at Middlebury. But I've never let imposing odds get in the way of me taking on a challenge, except for when I quit the football team in my first year, so let me see if I can count what I've learned at Middlebury.

1. Political science. I have read so much Fareed Zakaria and Larry Diamond that I feel like we've shared Proctor paninis. I've also learned that political science does a really good job of describing what just happened, distinguishing it from history which describes what's been happening, and economics which has now shown that it can show what will not happen next.

2. Speaking of economics. I do love the dismal science, although to ease the enrollment, they should call it "Economics - Not Business." Also, "Intro to Macroeconomics" could use actual unemployed econ majors to demonstrate the Phillips curve.

3. Dining Halls: Here is another teaching tool. Mexican food: short term benefit, long-term consequences.

4. How to be a Feb: First advice, try not to antagonize the entire Reg population with any satiric letters to the editor of The Campus in your first semester. Besides that, there's not too much to it.

5. Diversity: No Elite Prep School Left Behind.

6. The judicial board: After three and a half years on the community judicial board, which hears conduct cases, I can happily report to the campus that it is blessed with hardworking, considerate and compassionate individuals on its judicial boards. These people are very successful at providing the fundamental fairness they set out to bestow on accused students, however challenging this may be. Unfortunately, the entire judicial process is flawed by its institutional design, specifically, a lack of transparency that replaces clarity with confusion. The judicial board has nothing to hide, but as presently constructed, my conversations with students indicate that impression permeates the judicial environment. There are other areas that could use reform as well, so all I recommend to the student body is to take its rightful ownership over this process, and ensure that fairness will not be an issue.

7. Intramural Sports: You can learn all you need to know about a man, or woman, from playing intramural sports with him or her. So for all of you calling weak fouls in basketball or plowing through girls during co-ed soccer, know that you will be judged, in this life or the next.

8. Professors: Taking a class with a professor you've already had is great. It takes less time to figure out what's going on, and you usually do much better. In short, the second time is great. However, I wouldn't use this advice when it comes to chicks or dudes you "Bunked" with on Friday night - sometimes, once is enough.

9. Career Services: They work hard, but they don't work miracles.

10. Majors: Whatever happened to the beauty of the single major? There's no need to take on multiple majors if that action thereby defeats the purpose of having a major at all, to gain acute expertise of a subject matter. A triple major with a side of pre-med probably only has expertise in anxiety and BannerWeb.

11. Pre-med: If you are wishy-washy about going pre-med, make sure you drop it as soon as it becomes apparent it's not going to work out. Otherwise, the only thing that will make it to medical school is your GPA in cadaver form.

12. Senior Week: It's a marathon, not a sprint. And it's easy to tell who the sprinters are on graduation morning.

And so as I finally approach my own graduation morning, I will take all this knowledge with me as I bid the campus, and The Campus, adieu. Thanks for reading all this time.