Senior Year: What They Never Told You...

By A. Birerdinc

Senior Editor

unny how four years flew by; it seems just like yesterday I was a freshman -- confused and apprehensive, on my own, scared but loving it. Now I am a responsible, older and wiser senior. The apprehension and the confusion are still there but now they have a focus. My fears are primarily concerned with my utter and complete lack of motivation, my non-existent job upon graduation, and various other more exotic fears that college life has instigated.

Upon reflection I find that I have learned a lot from my college experience. Aside from the academic -- college life has taught me many useful little things that one has to live through to know. Here's a few off the top of my head.

I have learned that people can and often do function on three hours or less of sleep. Coffee and nicotine are a food group. There is a fourth meal to the day -- usually between 2 and 4 am. Mylanta can be used to fix any ailment in the mid section of the body. There is no such thing as "too late to call." Roommates can speak to each other without using conventional words. The laundry machines will create a vortex which will suck one sock of every pair of your favorite socks in to a parallel universe. Quarters are crucial to survival. Laundry needs to be done when there are no more clean undergarments left.

The cafeteria will push your creativity to the utmost limits. Anything in pita bread is health food. Ramen noodles are crucial to life. The older you get, the younger the freshmen look. Computers have a mind of their own -- they can sense your need to print and will crash of their own will. Papers can be, and often are, written scant seconds before they are due -- in fact they can be written during class time and be deposited into the mail box of the professor in question with minimal penalty. Taking a shower at 2 am is perfectly normal. Frisbee at midnight is a great study break. The vending machines will stop working as soon as the cafeteria closes. And last but certainly not least, through the use of things such as Snood, email, internet, broadcast and various other evil inventions -- procrastination will be raised to an art form.

In retrospect I think I actually enjoyed my college career -- well most of it anyway. Alright -- all except the midterms and the finals -- and the papers, and the labs, and the quizzes that come-out-of-no-where-with-no-warning, and the 8:30 classes that go on forever, and the 2:30 classes that put you to sleep 'cuz it's right after lunch, and the people who live upstairs who feel like they must emit strange and disturbing noises during those few and precious hours of sleep.

Don't believe anyone who tells you that senior year will be a breeze, it won't be. Unless you're talking about the kind of breeze that knocks over buildings, picks up wildlife and throws them around and about, uproots trees, etc.-- that kind of breeze, yes. But senior year isn't all that bad -- it just seems that way for most of the time. Senior year is a time of reflection upon one's soul, deeply pondering the reason for existence, delving into the mysteries of life and the job market. Senior year is the culmination of four years of higher education geared to help us deal with whatever the big scary world may decide to chuck our way -- ahh, we all need our own little delusions...