How to choose the most vampire friendly college

So me and Erin were talking about The Vampire Diaries and villain decay the other afternoon when it struck me that Twilight is full of bullshit of the most obscene proportions (as in, more bullshit than the usual bullshit people bring up when discussing Twilight). Think about it--the Cullens pose as high school students forever? No wonder vampires say they've been damned to eternity in hell! I absolutely loved high school and even I wouldn't want to repeat it more than once.

This is a binturong. It's very cute and I just thought everyone should know this exists. It's screaming "HUG ME, HUMAN FRIENDS!"

Think about it. Edward tells Bella that they're posing as high school students so that they can blend in with a human town for the maximum amount of time. But is faking your own death every four versus every eight years such a pain in the ass that it's worth going through high school forever? Why not pose as college students? They'd be able to go all over the world, they'd be able to study absolutely anything instead of repeating Algebra Two over and over and over, and no one would care if they were weird. I can only conclude that Edward and Friends don't know how to find a vampire friendly college. This is a shame, as they're quite possibly the only people rich enough to afford higher education at the moment. So I thought I'd jot down some quick tips on choosing the proper college for America's most oppressed minority: vampires.

Find a college that offers night classes

Unless you're a bullshitty Twilight vampire (who I'm starting to suspect only repeats high school to meet underage girls) who isn't affected by sunlight, you're going to want to find a college that offers night classes. While evening classes have traditionally been seen as part of community and commuter colleges, designed to accommodate people who already have careers, many elite institutions are using night classes as a way to provide more flexible scheduling to students who have inflexible commitments (like, for example, the urge to slaughter small mammals and drink their blood).

Cornell offers plenty of night classes. In fact, starting mid-November, all classes that begin past three PM are night classes. I took a night class last year. Every Monday and Wednesday, I'd grab a milkshake from the dining room, climb to the freaking third floor of Morrill Hall, and promptly pass out while the teacher droned on and on about China. (Still aced the class, parents!). For matriculating vampires, finding the proper array of night classes is crucial to promoting a positive learning environment. Nothing detracts from an education like bursting into flames on the way to class. Or bursting into sparkly glitter.

Dining options: Ag schools, night life

Vampires traditionally display a wide variety of eating habits--well, for creatures that only eat blood, that is. Some vampires feed exclusively off humans. Others prefer animals. A few vampires feed exclusively off cats, but they're weird and we don't talk about them much. This is one of the complicating factors in defining 'vampire-friendly' colleges. Texas A&M has a big agricultural program, which is great if you're the kind of vampire who feeds off cows. But it's also in Texas, meaning that a lot of people have guns and Adeline Parks is more than willing to donate her giant silver earrings to melt into bullets. 

Got that, you bloodsucking varmits?

Pro tip--if you're the kind of vampire that feeds off humans, try going to a northern school. Why? Scarves! Nothing helps hide those suspicious neck marks like a school where everyone's always wearing scarves. Also, liberal northern college students will totally support your alternative lifestyle. Well, right up until the point where you start eating them (although, if you feed off those annoying drunk sorority girls who used to hang around under my window each night last year, you might find some surprising support)

Choosing Your Major: What Works For Eternity?

Lots of vampires are drawn to the easier majors--history, for example, since most of them have experienced it (though your paper on the taste of Queen Victoria's blood probably won't land you an A, even if it does have historical flavor). I'd like to encourage them to branch out a little more. Take something that isn't so open to changes that it's different every decade. You don't want to be one of those vampires who shows up to BIOM 3450 explaining how the liver produces blood and how to balance the four vital humors. 

And you don't want to quote this particular bit of medical wisdom. 

Physics can be useful. The basic laws really haven't changed since Newton stumbled on them. Of course, those basic laws really don't explain how a body can turn into mist or why you have an anathema towards religious symbols, but it's still good to know. Take something out of the box, like English. Hey, the undead don't really need jobs! Architecture is a good course if you like the idea of designing your own imperious lairs. Just don't take chemistry. I'm sitting in it right now and I'm being bored to death. 

Evaluate Your Housing Options

Who doesn't like to live in the dorms? Sane people! Also, vampires! While dorm life is great if you want to live on top of people who smell bad and leave their hair in the shower, the normal tolerance levels generally stop at someone hauling in a coffin to replace their bed (though if you do need to sleep all day, you'll find yourself in good company). There's a nice source of food nearby, but you don't want to get lazy and end up with the Freshman Fifteen-People-Whose-Iron-Levels-Are-Suspiciously-Low. 

For this reason, it's recommended that vampire students find a place off campus. Cornell has some lovely old fashioned houses built back in the 1800's up on the picturesque Forest Home Drive. Regular students can't even afford a doormat for one of those places, but for some of your older vampires, it'll be like stepping back in time to their childhoods (the cars whizzing up and down picturesque Forest Home Drive will ruin this image, so it's probably best to wear earmuffs to get the full effect. An off campus apartment can also be nice, provided you don't mind the scent of decay coming from the week old bananas in your trash can. Hell, you're a vampire, so you probably love it. In which case--can I start using your trashcans? Because mine stink. 

The Dumbest Classes Cornell Offers (and how to BS them into something that looks good on your resume)

A few weeks back, I wrote a modest proposal for a new class and was approached by quite a few people who wanted to know if it was a real thing. Sadly, Cornell does not offer deer hunting as a class. But it does offer some interesting substitutes. 

College is supposed to be the place you go to learn the skills you'll use to build your career. One of the many  useful skills you learn there is bullshit--the art of making something useless, pointless, and worthless sound important, pertinent, and complicated. What follows is a list of the most useless classes my university offers and a helpful guide for explaining to your future employer why you took them:

AAS 4550

Race and the University

On the surface, an in-depth examination of the role race plays in higher education sounds like a good use of your time. You might learn about the historical struggles of minorities to obtain higher education, or the debate surrounding affirmative action. But you'll be hard pressed to explain to your future boss why this counts to your major in Asian American Studies. 

Not a racial stereotype. At all. 

That's right. The class on race and higher education is in the Asian department. Since I'm white, I can't exactly say this is racist--but the course says it will focus on examining America's 'major research institutions' and explore how it is 'that certain knowledge formations and disciplines come to be naturalized or privileged within the academy?'

How would I explain this to my future employer? Hand them the course description and say, 'I understand this'.

ASRC 6517

The Oprah Book Club and African American Literature

Yes. This is a real thing. I understand that Oprah's a major icon for the African-American community, but she has more classes named after her than Martin Luther King Jr, President Obama, and Fredrick Douglas combined. I could understand a course on Oprah's role in the African-American community--perhaps focusing on how she's inspired black women, or on how she's worked outside cultural boundaries. But a class on Oprah's Book Club? 

ASRC 6517 promises to 'draw on a range of critical and theoretical resources related to the Oprah Book Club archive', a sentence your average Oprah's Book Club reader can't even understand. The very fact one watches Oprah indicates you don't really have that much to do during the day. Next thing you know, the American History department will be offering courses on Honey Boo Boo and What Not To Wear. 

How do you explain this class to your future boss? 'It was a requirement for my major. The department chair was Oprah herself'.

EAS 1220

Earthquake!

You can say this much about this introductory Earth sciences class--it sounds like a direct to DVD sequel to Airplane!, but one that'd be slightly better than Airplane! II. I understand the importance of making your course sound memorable, bu t come on, this is Cornell. Part of the Ivy League tradition is taking classes with pretentious names. 'Introduction to Anthrobotany in Geographically Isolated Systems' just sounds better than 'People Farming On Islands'. Adding an exclamation mark after the course title will convince absolutely nobody to take it. 

Or watch your horrible, horrible movie.

This class is supposed to be about understanding how natural disasters occur and are mitigated. The first half of the course focuses on building earthquake proof buildings, which is probably good knowledge for society to have. There's a lot of stuff in there about analyzing data and public communication, which sounds pretty boring for a class with an exclamation mark in its title. But this class doesn't just focus on plain old earthquakes. Rather, it covers volcanoes, tsunamis, and the ever exiting 'threat of extinction from a future impact by an extraterrestrial body' 

How to explain this to your future boss? 'Ever seen Armgeddon'? 

SHUM 4864

Pirate Humanities

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! This class (which is BYOR, by the way), sounds like it can't quite be what it sounds like. This is about media piracy? Right? Nope. Offered through the Cornell Society for the Humanities, this class 'examines pirate assemblages as an ineluctable underside of capitalist modernity'. In other words, where you've got money, people are gonna try and steal it. This is an actual class about actual pirates.

You will always remember this as the day you almost  had Professor Jack Sparrow!

And yet the course description makes it sound like the most boring class ever. 'Within a framework of control and emergence (derived largely from contemporary theories of risk, biopolitics, and securitization), the course seeks to develop a posthumanist understanding of the pirate'. Seriously? What does that even mean? It's a course on freaking pirates! Stop trying to make it sound all smart and stuff. Anyway, there might be some good stuff in this seminar  but it's limited to 15 people, so I suggest illegally downloading Pirates of the Caribbean instead. 

How to explain this to your future boss? Tell him it was a current events course about crime in the failed state of Somalia. Try to look somber. 

DSOC 4210

Theories of Reproduction

Is this class about . . . reproducing machines? Reproducing ancient texts? Nope. It is exactly what it sounds like. A four thousand level course on human reproduction. Keep in mind, this is something human beings have done for thousands of years without any real need for explanation, but apparently Cornell students are so nerdy they need an advanced class on the correct procedure for baby-making. 

This class will empathize 'gender-based' theories of reproduction. I'm assuming this lecture will begin with 'When a man and a woman love each other very much . . .' I'm not sure how you could have a theory of human reproduction that wasn't gender based. It will also examine what makes 'families have any, few, and many children', and I assume the answer will be closely related to sex. Isn't this material taught in ninth grade health classes across the country. The very existence of this class puts the future of the American educational system in doubt. If you take this class, it actually lowers your chances of getting laid. Or you might just be a developmental sociology major, in which case, sorry. 

How to explain this to your future boss? Don't.

The Six Books You Read In College

            So I walk into my bio class and the TA asks if anyone has questions about the lecture. I raise my hand. “I skipped lecture because I was busy doing the homework I’d forgotten. So what was it about?”

            The TA stared at me. “There’ll be a handout posted on Blackboard.”

            “That was supposed to be funny,” I mutter, and sink into my seat.

           

            A girl next to me asks what happens when there’s more animals in the environment than it can support. Whaddya think, chick? They all go out for ice cream? So the TA takes the next ten minutes to explain that, when there’s not enough food for all the animals, lots of them die. “Start two penguins in generation 1. Then in the next three generations—”

Underneath the snow, he has three feet. Three adorable little penguin feet.

            “You get a lot of inbred penguins?” I say. Everyone stares at me again. Joke, people, it’s a joke! Premeds don’t really have a sense of humor, do they?

            Late February. Between exams, study groups, and searching for an apartment, I’ve barely had time to work on my blog and for this, I apologize. I’ve carved out fifty minutes of an English lecture for which I haven’t done the reading. Not that it matters, because the professor only ever lectures on the first ten pages. Sometimes, this makes me wonder just how much of the assigned reading she’s done herself.

            “Today, we’ll be discussing the difference between what it is to be ‘un’ something and ‘not’ something.” The professor pauses. “Seriously.” You know a lecture’s going to be fluffy when even the professor thinks the topic is ridiculous. “Here’s a cartoon of Darwin’s head on an ape’s body. It’s supposed to be satire.” No duh.

            There’s an empty can of Red Bull at my feet and the girl in front of me is dangling her hair over my computer. Here’s some of the books you read in college.

The Ancient Philosophical Rant

           

            Much like Plato’s Republic or Utopia, this book was written hundreds of years ago and is mostly complaining about their society. No matter what the professor says about its impact on society or the historical value of the text, you have a sneaking sensation it was just as boring back when it was published. Since it was written before the invention of hygiene, movies, or editors, it is extremely long and nothing much happens. People publish hundreds of philosophical rants on the internet every day. It’s a little disturbing to think that, six hundred years from now, ktxbits228 might be considered the greatest writer of our time, and future college students will discuss why 21st century humans worshiped anthropomorphic cats.

The Depressing Modern Novel

            One of my friends took a class last semester entitled, ‘Reading the 9/11 Novel’. Fun! Nothing spells education like reading about the horrible deaths of thousands of people. The Holocaust, the sinking of the Titanic, Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . A surefire way to add gravitas to a boring novel is linking it to one of histories’ great tragedies. I once read a novel about six college students who got superpowers when a radioactive meteor crashed into their apartment. They don colorful costumes and set out to stop crimes. Then 9/11 happens and they’re powerless to prevent it. Seriously? Stop getting your tragic in my light-hearted sci-fi!

The Token Good Book Added to Fill the Class

You can read this! After spending a semester reading incomprehensible first-hand reports of the real War of the Roses.

            In my English class, we’ll be reading Snow Crash . . . eventually. First, we have to get through Utopia, New Atlantis, and Brave New World. My roommate gets to read Watchmen at the end of her class, after The Road, a book of obscure short stories, a book of more obscure poems, and a graphic novel about a woman discovering her sexuality (because it doesn’t count as pornography if it’s literature. Even if you do see many, many pictures of oral sex). Other classes get to read The Hunger Games. Lots of students take these classes and push through weeks and weeks of boring discussion for a chance to read their favorites . . . only to find that analyzing actual good books takes all the fun out of them.

The Obscure Book of Poetry

            In order to help Ithaca’s independent bookstore to stay in business, my friend’s professor has ordered an obscure book of poetry from it and has forced every student in the class to walk all the way to town to buy the obscure book from the obscure author, published by an obscure university press. The poems are all about a teenager’s lesbian relationship with her adult music teacher. This is the second book about lesbians in the syllabus of that class which is taught by a male in his mid-twenties.

The Graphic Novel

            The Holocaust. Suicide. AIDS. Hundreds of books have been written about these very, very, very depressing topics. How will you make your book different? You’ll write it in pictures! A cheap gimmick intended to sell books to people far too lazy to read an actual book (and some nerds who don’t bother checking what this manga is about), The Graphic Novel is quick to read and will leave you feeling slightly depressed on the inside, like one more fun, innocent thing has become corrupted and tragic.  

Postmodern Book Seeking Attention

The girl in the middle lives in my dorm. She's the one with quotation marks tattooed on her wrists.

            Lots of people I know love The Road. I read parts of it. Good enough. But, seriously, what does the author have against quotation marks? Or naming characters? What does a book gain from being deliberately hard to understand? I promise you, there will be one book on every syllabus where the characters don’t have names, or everything is WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, or the author plays with FONTS to make a stupid point. Written by English majors for English majors, these are the books you carry around when you want to look smart. Warning: you will look like a hipster instead.

How NOT to find a party

Ahhh, Collegetown. Cornell's capital of cerveza consumption. The landscaping is beautiful, if you're the kind of person who thinks landscaping should be done with a lawn of red Solo cups and a tasteful asortment of crushed beer cans.

Collegetown. It's peaceful about half the time. Peace and quiet in Collegetown are strongly correlated with time of day.

So when you've just finished your first final and have a few days until your next one, Collegetown is the perfect place to go to kick back, relax, and enjoy yourself with your friends, roommates, and that one skinny guy who keeps vomiting in the bushes. So early last Saturday evening, just past midnight, me and my friends decided to go down to Collegetown in hopes of finding a party.

It was, as usual, way more crowded than it ever was during the daytime. People filled the sidewalks, not really caring whether or not you had room to walk past them. Everyone's smoking. Let me tell you, it's not the drinking that's weird, but the smoking. Regular old cigarettes, not weed. At least alcohol gets you drunk, which can be kind of fun. Smoking just makes you smell bad.

Also, I don't know people who party. I know people who know people who party, though, and these are the people I rely upon to help me find said parties. Normally, this involves them texting their friends who party and asking where those friends are. This allows us to gather valuable information, such as 'at the football house' and 'some frat'. Surprisingly, drunk people don't really remember the street address of their locations too well.

So there we were, walking around Collegetown, looking for a party. There were a lot of girls dressed in Santa hats walking around in stiletto heels. One of the unique things about the Cornell Collegetown is the hills. Collegetown is located on a very steep hill, and it is extremely entertaining to watch drunk girls in five inch heels walking up and down the slope. I've yet to see a truly spectacular wipeout, but I have faith that sooner or later I'll witness the awesome spectacle that is maybe four or five sorority girls falling into each other, domino style, and tumbling over into someone's lawn.

My roommate Audrey assures me that's not sadistic at all, as long as I don't actually push them myself.

So we go and stand outside one house that's having a party. Turns out the friend of a friend who was there is now leaving. Onward to text other people! We walk down the hill, then up the hill, then past the shoe store, the pizza place, and the liquor shop. Guess which one is busiest? Actually, it's the pizza place, seeing as how everyone's too drunk to climb up the steps leading to the liquor shop. It's suggested that we try texting a boy someone knows, but that's vetoed after said girl says she hasn't talked to that boy since the time she made out with him while both of them were drunkenly leaning on me.

As we walk past Collegetown bagels, one of those delightful locations open from six thirty in the morning to two in the . . . next morning, we spot a bus heading back to North Campus, where the rest of the frats are.  We hop on. The bus driver's out taking a smoke, so I don't bother swiping my ID card.

The inside of the bus happens to be pink. Because why not?

While we're sitting on the bus, Audrey points out a guy she says she went to high school with. He looks like he's having a good time, so we all go back and talk to him and ask where he was. Apparently, it was a private party for the men's swim team. So we weren't invited.

Sans alcohol, we had no choice but to retire to my dorm room with a bag of Doritos, mozzarella sticks, and an individual pizza with pineapple, mushrooms, and garlic. And that's how NOT to find a party . . . but still manage to have fun.

Freshman Again: Things you learn your second time around

I've now had the privilege of being a freshman at two very excellent schools: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) and Cornell University. These two experiences, four years apart, have taught me some valuable lessons about being at the bottom rung of a totem pole--and surprisingly,  the basics of those lessons hasn't really changed. Here's some examples.

The artwork gets weirder

• As a freshman at TJ, you envy the upperclassmen who know how to drive. In college, you envy the upperclassmen who know how to use public transport.
• As a freshman at TJ, you learn freshman biology. In college, you learn the exact same biology but you pay two hundred dollars for the textbook.
• As a freshman at TJ, when you loose at football, you rationalize that at least your players are smarter than the opponents. In college, you get your butts kicked by Harvard.
• As a freshman at TJ, the first thing they teach you to do in a research project is look at books in your subject. In college, you actually have to do this. 
• As a freshman at TJ, you can't wait to watch your first R-rated movie. In college, you get exited when you learn the local cinema is showing 'The Lorax'.
• As a freshman at TJ, you learn drinking coffee is the best way to stay awake until 2am to work on your IBET paper. In college, you learn that drinking coffee is the best way to stay awake until 2am so you can party. 
• As a freshman at TJ, you ask people where in NoVA they're from. In college, you ask people where in the world they're from.
• As a freshman at TJ, your class is over fifty percent Asian-American. In college, your class is sixteen percent Asian-American, and everyone says they can't believe how many Asian kids they see.
• As a freshman at TJ, you wonder if anyone on campus drinks. In college, you wonder if anyone on campus doesn't.
• As a freshman at TJ, you think eighth period is the coolest. In college, you have less than four hours of class a day.
• As a freshman at TJ, you're so busy that you never have time to clean your room. In college, your mother doesn't get so annoyed she'll do it for you.
• As a freshman at TJ, playing sports means you have to work out carpools. In college, you don't need a carpool, but you'll do laundry twice as often.
• As a freshman at TJ, you'll get used to having hour long bus rides. In college, your bus ride is only three blocks long, but still takes an hour because you stop so much.
• As a freshman at TJ, you wish you could eat as much junk food as you want. In college, there's all-you-can-eat sushi, burgers, wings, nachos, and pizza, and you'd kill for a home-cooked meal.
• As a freshman at TJ, there's going to be a few annoying kids in your IBET you can't get rid of. In college, those annoying kids live in your dorm.
• As a freshman at TJ, your overnight trip with school friends is the funnest thing ever. In college, you're stuck on a giant overnight trip with all your friends and it's really hard to study.
• As a freshman at TJ, you procrastinate by playing Bubble Spinner. In college, you procrastinate by working on your blog.
• As a freshman at TJ, you join clubs like Dungeons and Dragons and Stonecutters. In college, you join clubs like the Women's Guild of Engineers and slack off with your friends.
• As a freshman at TJ, you can't wait until you go to college. In college, you can't wait to get home and see all your friends from TJ.

Early Childhood 'Education'

            All parents want the best for their children. And if said parent is a university professor, they probably want their kids to be as well-educated as they are. What better way to expose your budding Einstein or Plato to the joys of learning than raising them on a college campus?

            Now, real estate in some prime areas of most campuses—the nice houses, where the rich sorority girls live, or those big, cool looking buildings called ‘halls’—is way beyond the budget of your average academic, or even a small country, like Liechtenstein (scratch that. Apparently, Liechtenstein has a lot of money).

The lovely mountains of Liechtenstein.

            But, anyway, there’s one place where university faculty members can really live in close contact with the intellect of the students—the dorms.

             ‘Faculty in residence’ programs exist in major universities all across the USA. They’re supposed to teach students that professors are approachable, normal people—just like those jerks downstairs who knock on your door at 2AM because they think you have fruit snacks. But what about the children of these professors? They stand to learn all kinds of valuable things, too. Here’s a few:

            1. How to operate an elevator. In a building where you’ve got tons of people going up and down at any given moment for any kind of reason, elevators are of paramount importance. If you want to go downstairs, and the elevator opens in front of you, you have to actually ask the people inside which direction they’re going, or you might end up going from floor 3 to 5 to 2 back to 3 before you actually get down to the ground. Elevator skills are especially difficult for children, who might not be able to push the highest buttons or intelligently articulate where they’re actually headed. Children stand to gain both motor skills and social skills from this exercise.

            2. How to use profanity. Whether it’s just minor expletives after being stuck in an elevator for over five minutes (see above) or more serious language after realizing one’s bathroom mirror isn’t actually there, children living in the dorms will gather valuable English language skills. Sure, most children learn dirty words when their friends whisper ‘em to each other on the playground, but in the dorms, children will learn these words in their proper context. And as any language teacher will tell you, it’s always better to learn a language in its native environment than by simply memorizing vocabulary.

            3. How to study. The children of academics are unfortunately, hopelessly doomed to an education at one point or another in their lives. Living in a community of young adults already suffering such a fate, children learn the valuable survival skills necessary to escape this part of their lives with minimal scarring. Simply by watching and mimicking, children learn that the most affective way to study is either: sitting in one’s room and watching Mad Men, lying on a balcony in a string bikini, or donning a pair of booty shorts and a lace camisole and going to the mythical font of knowledge found in ‘Collegetown’. As any parent will tell their child, college is a time for studying—and when your kid sees students studying so hard they start throwing up, they will probably conclude knowledge is a lot like the flu.

            Welcome to academia, little Johnny!

Course Registration

Okay. So. I think I need to take a language. And PE. Ooh, I get AP credit for computer science. GridWorld was actually useful for something! No credit for Human Geography? How could they? That course teaches kids all about useful stuff like . . . the capital of Bosnia? The location of the Andes? How to interpret a topographical map?

What does that class teach? Okay, skip it.

Calculus . . . eight credits. Ick, I have to take Multivar again? Guess I’ll have to see if it’s possible to be even lazier in a math class this time around. I already slept through second-order differentials and skipped the day we did vector fields.

On second thought, retaking it is probably a good idea. Add MATH 2130.

Oh, I get to place out of GOVT 1111.  Add GOVT 1817. Does placement out of mean I get credit for it or that I don’t have to take it? APUSH counts. I get to get out of PHYS 1112, 2207, and 2213.

They offer AP Turkish? And I get NOTHING for Bio?