Hangover: College Edition

I'm sure some of us spent a good portion of our college careers hungover. There was a day or two, or a class or four, that I was definitely not quite sober for. Let's not talk about Friday nights.

And while those stories are endlessly entertaining, today I have a very different kind of hangover.  As those of you who have listened to this week's teaser know, tomorrow's episode is all about college. And I am sorely hungover on the subject.

collegecouponing.net

Turns out we have quite a few devoted listeners who fall into the undergraduate category and some lovely ladies asked us to spend an episode digging into the ins and outs of higher ed.  And why not? Heading off to college is, for many, still the biggest rite of passage of early adulthood. Most of us have been there, done that, gotten the diploma, and the embarrassing hickies, and the run to the student health center for Plan B, and the drunken walk of shame at 7am, and the hard, embarrassing lessons learned from living in undivided-double dorm rooms.  A lot of us also received great educations, met amazing people we are still honored to call friends, and had solid first steps towards our careers because of our college experiences.

We hash all this and more out on the air tomorrow, so for now I want to share just how hungover I am on one very important facet of college:  what's missing from general requirements.

General ed requirements, and basically everything 101, can be either great introductions to key areas of study or extraordinary wastes of time. Even with all the general requirements (and there are so many sometimes) there are, I feel, serious gaps left in what we need to learn during our time in school. At Bangles University, general ed requirements would go something like this.

Sex and Sexuality 101: How to express, understand and communicate your sexual desires and needs while respecting those of others

pencourage.com

Sex is a grown-up thing.  Not that only grown-ups (whatever those are) have sex, or that some authority somewhere should be able to card you when you are buying condoms, but sex is something that people need to be able to talk about, before, after, and during, like adults.  That is, no slut-shaming, no name-calling, no slapping someone in the face with your cock without asking because you saw it in a porn one time and thought it was cool, no being grossed out by unexpected sounds (come on guys, we're inserting things into parts of our bodies, noises happen).  It is also being open to discussing things you might not immediately find intriguing, even if only for conversation's sake, trusting yourself, getting past gender-norm expectations, and never, ever forcing someone to do something they don't want to do.

If we talked about sex in a mature, real world way with people in college and required that they take a semester long course in the subject of figuring out how to understand themselves and others as sexual beings world peace might not be out of the question.

Nothing gets solved by being embarrassed to talk about it.  The status quo currently sucks. If people can go to school and learn how blow apart atoms or negotiate stock trades in Mandarin they oughta be able to learn how to discuss why heterosexual sex without foreplay just isn't fun or how to ask their partner how they like their dick sucked. Just sayin'.

Economics 101:  What happens when you don't pay your bills, how your student loans are going to affect your life

We talk about student loans pretty extensively tomorrow, so I won't steal too much thunder, but three words:  think about them.  Deeply.  And often.

Bills are those annoying things that, unless you've lived on your own before college, your parents complain about and that you sometimes see in the mail.  They are also things that are required to be paid on time or the modern-day conveniences they afford, such as, oh, heat, power, the internet, go away.

Ignoring bills does not pay them.  Expecting your roommate to pay them without having a conversation about it ahead of time does not pay them.  Paying bills is something we all do, but that no one ever mentions as we make our way into adulthood.  Yes, it's a no-brainer.  But I still somehow managed to live with a boy who never had his share of the utilities when the bill was due.  We came within a hair of having our water shut off because the rest of the house said "we aren't carrying you this month, it's not getting paid until you pay up."

elephantjournal.com

Don't be that guy.

Nutrition and Food:  Ramen is great, but you can do better

Vegetables are important! Our bodies are awesome, efficient, crazy machines that we need to maintain.  Be nice to them.  If, as a whole, we had a population educated in what certain good foods do and what certain shit foods do we just might not have as many crazy, scary unnatural "food" products on the shelves.

Intro to Law:  It's a free country, but what can you do?

Shit happens.  People do dumb things, they get caught.  Police and lawyers are involved.  But sometimes police and lawyers are involved when they really don't need to be, and not to get all 1970s conspiracy theory, but sometimes police do things they aren't allowed to do, and get away with it (and you in a lot of trouble) because people just don't know better.

A badge is not absolute authority. Screaming "I know my rights!" while you're being detained or your car is being searched doesn't mean anything.  Asserting the rights that you have (because you know them and know them well) before your car is searched, on the other hand, definitely does. (In many situations, you do not have to consent to car searches. Police can detain you if you refuse, but only up for a certain amount of time.  If they don't get a warrant in that time you're free to go. Or something like that.  Damn, I really wish someone had taught me all the ins and outs of this legal stuff).

Interviewing 101:  You're great on paper, be better in person

A lot of really smart, dedicated, qualified people don't get the job they applied for because they do not interview well.  Being interviewed, like interviewing, is an art. Being fresh out of school and applying for your first job can be terrifying - there are skills and tips people can teach you to make it significantly less daunting. If part of the goal of going to college is to get a job in a field you are passionate about, your college education should help you land that job, not just get you the credentials to qualify for it.

Some schools take great pains to introduce students to these areas in a practical way, but plenty do not. If it's not relevant to you being a successful student it often just isn't on the menu.  Going to college can be great. Furthering your education is a wonderful decision and can be a whole boatload (keg load?) of fun. But going to college isn't about learning to be a good, productive student; it's about learning to be a good, knowledgable citizen.

College Writing:  because you do really need to learn to use your words. 

sites.psu.edu

But not only in the 5-paragraph, "how my service trip to Guatemala changed me" or "what the green light symbolizes in The Great Gatsby" college writing way.  There are a zillion different kinds of writing, all of them prized differently by different industries. People should be taught to write, and to write well. Period.

Understanding that the "college writing" way of writing is one in a million should be an upfront part of teaching college students to write. Writing 101 should teach how writing in an academic environment works and then introduce the many different ways writing is used to communicate ideas.  People come out of freshman year saying "Ugh, I hate writing," when really they hate academic writing.  If we're only going to teach one kind of writing in general ed then it should at least be explained that it's only one kind and why that kind is being taught.

And that, ladies and gents, is how your general ed requirements would get banged out at Bangles University.



<< steps down off soapbox >>