Two Bits: Self-reliance for unfortunate undergrads

What has become of our dear Tech? By the by, we used to be such a great institution full of thriving intellectuals who excelled, not only in academics, but rather in all aspects of life. Now friends, I fear the worst. I fear that dark days are ahead of us.

As your resident graduate student critic, it is my job to critique the mass of undergraduate students every step of the way, and needless to say, this prose has been in the making for quite some time now. During my many years at this prestigious university, I have had the chance to sit back and watch students, year after year, educate themselves in a number of different disciplines, ranging from the complex sciences to the delightful arts.

Every year, the crop of students are brighter than the year before. Yet, for every step forward, they take they inevitably take two steps back. For every bit of existential knowledge gained, a bit of common sense is lost somewhere in the depths of Howey.

Sure, you may be able to memorize that entire appendix of trigonometric functions, identify every example of irony in all of Hemingway’s novels or even convert all of Romeo and Juliet to binary, but  sadly, you cannot avoid burning that wretched and sorry excuse of a meal called Easy Mac.

The time has come, students of Tech, to get back to our roots, to get back to an age of self-reliance.

Petty meal plans have made you weak. No longer can you provide for yourselves. Kitchens serve no purpose other than a vacuum in which the remnants of different forms of take-out begin to pile up upon one another.

In my day, we had to fend for ourselves. There were no microwaves small enough to fit  anywhere within the confides of our eight-man dorm rooms. The only Easy Mac we had on our campus was a young man and party animal who got around with the ladies more times than a few. If we were hungry, we cooked chili with the heat from the radiator.

Just the other day, I saw a dorm room flooded in a tsunami of bubbles when an under-grad filled their dishwasher with dish washing soap rather than detergent. Sadly, I’m not surprised, seeing as it’s the first time that many of you have had to do the dishes yourself.

The fact that these inane mistakes occur at the frequency at which they do continues to baffle me. With the internet no more than a mere smart phone away, all the problems of the undergrad life ought to be a thing of the past. Sadly, this isn’t the case.

Last week, I saw a freshmen Instagram a picture of their wipers to their Tumblr asking if anyone living in Cloudman knew how to change them.

I thought the thirteen hours of studying hieroglyphics had gotten to me and that I was merely imagining things.

Couple this with the inessential whining and I’m beginning to lose my sanity. You think your statics class is tough? Try passing drown proofing. Yes, you heard me, drown proofing. This wasn’t just some elective that your collegiate Bear Grylls could take, it was required to graduate. We lost a lot of good men out there, but in the end it made thermodynamics seem like a breeze.

So next you find yourself with a supreme pizza engulfed in flames, trapped on the bottom rack of the oven and set off the sprinklers, I want you think of how we had to carry buckets of water up three flights  of stairs, both ways, to put out that bad boy out, and then you can complain to me.

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