The old college try

It's almost that time of year again. The bees are buzzing, the sun is shining between downpours, the last of this summer's prospective-student families are lumbering across campus, and I just paid half a month's salary to cover what IU vaguely describes as "fees." Soon, the rest of IU-Bloomington's nearly 39,000 students will return in a tsunami of people and cars and boxes and furniture, filling up every parking lot and sprawling on every flat or quasi-flat surface. Around 17 percent of this flood will be freshmen and they'll be brimming with questions. As I'm now facing my seventh year in college, and have not yet been committed to a psychiatric institution, I figure I can provide some answers.\nWill college help me get a good job? \nThis depends on your definition of a good job. If you mean a job where you don't have to compete with 13-year-olds in Guatemala, then the answer is "probably." Although, you might want to think hard before pursuing that degree in philosophy. \nIf you mean a job with a high salary, the answer is "maybe." It most likely will mean taking classes that involve math, such as economics, physics or accounting. This requires a degree of masochism. Thus, it might be easier, and more lucrative, to let people pay to beat you with a rubber hose. \nIf you mean a job that's personally fulfilling, then you should get back on the mother-ship. However, with all the recruiters that come to campus, you won't lack for options. Last year, IU students even managed to break into the adult film and nude modeling sectors.\nIs it true that IU students party a lot?\nA "lot" is a highly relative term. For example, if we compare the average number of hours spent partying in any given week to the average number of hours spent, say, shearing sheep, the amount of partying will naturally seem huge. However, when compared to other activities, that amount might look tiny. I suspect that when compared to the amount of time IU students spend sleeping, the amount of time spent partying appears very small indeed.\nWill college prepare me for the real world? \nLet me put it this way. Jerry Springer is running for the U.S. Senate. An opera based on his show is a smash in London, while a musical called "Urinetown" is drawing critical acclaim on Broadway. Last week, a Pentagon research group proposed (then retracted) a system for betting on international crises. The Associated Press reported Sunday that a half-dozen Indiana lawmakers pack heat while debating in the state capital. And last Thursday, Fox aired back-to-back programs about insect bites and foreign objects pulled from people's bodies. \nTherefore, my answer is no. College is too sane to prepare you for the real world. However, with the planet's movers and shakers behaving as if they've been gargling absinthe, college will provide a nice place to hide out for four years. Nine, if you go on to graduate school.\nWill I make it?\nYou likely will. By my observation, it takes a special kind of laziness to flunk out of college. It takes commitment, dedication, long hours spent at the game console finding all the secret characters, days memorizing every guest star on Gilligan's Island and weeks of sleeping through class. Not everyone has this ability. It requires a special gift, a genius for idleness. For most of us, flunking out is simply not worth the effort. It's no wonder serious failures so often turn to drugs and alcohol. They get burned out.\nIn conclusion, let me welcome you to Bloomington. It's a special place. Nowhere else will you find more Tibetan restaurants than empty downtown parking spaces.