Bonus incentive: When you get back to your dorm, your answering machine and e-mail box will both be jammed with messages because everyone knows that people only try to contact you when you're out.
Not to mention the boy-watching. Granted, there aren't many on-campus places that aren't conducive to a rewarding game of I Spy, but the library may be one of the best. Why? Because the guys, like the books, are often categorized by type. Before long, with one quick scan of the room, you'll be able to determine who's there to scam, to cram or to find out when and where the next big party is.
If you're serious about acing your organic-chem finalbut aren't willing to deprive yourself of visual pleasureplunk your stuff down in the carrel ("library-speak" for private study table) with a clear view of that industrious premed student you've noticed lurking around the science building. You'll get to sneak a few
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well-deserved peeks, and he'll be too wrapped up in mammalian fetal anatomy to notice.
On the other hand, if you'd rather tap into the social scene than analyze the complete works of Ezra Pound, avoid the floors crammed with carrels and go straight to the group-study tables. Not only are you guaranteed not to get a moment's work done there, you might even wind up with a date.
You can study there, too. Sort of obvious, but some people have mental blocks when it comes to intended use. The library, you see, has a few distinct advantages over some other potential study spots, like, say, your couch or the campus pool. First of all, the required posture in this place is upright. In other words, no "I'll just stretch out on this extra-quilted mattress and read a few chapters." Trust me, there's little risk of drifting offno matter how boring your English assignmentwhen you're propped up in a standard-issue posture-friendly chair. It's practically proven: Your grades will improve dramatically if you're awake during the bulk of your study time.
Second, the library has stuff. I mean, sure, it has books. Millions of them, in fact. But in addition to racks of hardbacks, libraries are also jammed with these amazing things called resources, like copy machines, computers, desks, magazines, microfilm and kind, helpful people known as reference librarians (otherwise known as The Ones Who Actually Have Answers).
Yeah, yeah, life is short, and college is shorter. Who wants to spend all that time kissing up to a librarian? I can personally promise you this will not be a waste of your wonder years. Even after your final exam, you'll probably still hit the library from time to time. You might be looking for a job, filing your taxes or just trying to hunt down a good read. Or maybe you heard Prenatal Pig Guy is
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studying for his boards or researching which hospitals are looking for brilliant residents with chiseled features. Whatever the case, you can bet you'll be back inside a library one day soon. Might as well know your way around.
Jenna McCarthy
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Your Legacy
I had a philosophy professor who was the quintessential eccentric philosopher. His disheveled appearance was highlighted by a well-worn tweed sport coat and poor-fitting thick glasses, which often rested on the tip of his nose. Every now and then, as most philosophy professors do, he would go off on one of those esoteric and existential "what's the meaning of life" discussions. Many of those discussions went nowhere, but there were a few that really hit home. This was one of them:
"Respond to the following questions by a show of hands," my professor instructed.
"How many of you can tell me something about your parents?" Everyone's hand went up.
"How many of you can tell me something about your grandparents?" About three-fourths of the class raised their hands.
"How many of you can tell me something about your great-grandparents?" Two out of sixty students raised their hands.
"Look around the room," he said. "In just two short generations hardly any of us even know who our own great-grandparents were. Oh sure, maybe we have an old,
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tattered photograph tucked away in a musty cigar box or know the classic family story about how one of them walked five miles to school barefoot. But how many of us really know who they were, what they thought, what they were proud of, what they were afraid of, or what they dreamed about? Think about that. Within three generations our ancestors are all but forgotten. Will this happen to you?
"Here's a better question. Look ahead three generations. You are long gone. Instead of you sitting in this room, now it's your great-grandchildren. What will they have to say about you? Will they know about you? Or will you be forgotten, too?
"Is your life going to be a warning or an example? What legacy will you leave? The choice is yours. Class dismissed."
Nobody rose from their seat for a good five minutes.
Tony D'Angelo
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Angels on a Pin (101 Ways to Use a Barometer)
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague, who asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the system were not set up against the student. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I went to my colleague's office and read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."
The student had answered: "Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."
I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his
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physics course. A high grade is supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering the question. I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was surprised when the student did.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said no. He had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute he dashed off his answer which read: "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula S = 1/2AT2, calculate the height of the building."
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit.
In leaving my colleague's office, I recalled the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
"Well," said the student, "there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and, by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building."
"Fine," I said, "any others?"
"Yes," said the student. "There is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this
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will give you the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method.
"Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference be
tween the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated.
"On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession.
"Finally, there are many other ways of solving the problem," he concluded. "Probably the best is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: 'Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.' "
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
Alexander Calandra
Submitted by Kelly Steinhaus
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Topsy-Turvy World
I have often wondered why we are asked to focus so much on what is wrong and so little on what is right. I think that if we changed our focus and concentrated on what is right we would have a much better outcome.
Imagine your teacher hands back your test and he or she says, "Let's go over the questions you answered correctly." They might say, for instance, "Kim, that was a brilliant answer you gave to question number three" or "Brian, number six was some of your finest work ever." I can't help but think I would leave that class with a little spring in my step.
I love this conversation between Alice and the Mad Hatter, excerpted from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:
Alice: Where I come from, people study what they are not good at in order to be able to do what they are good at.
Mad Hatter: We only go around in circles in Wonderland, but we always end up where we started. Would you mind explaining yourself?
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Alice: Well, grown-ups tell us to find out what we did wrong, and never do it again.
Mad Hatter: That's odd! It seems to me that in order to find out about something, you have to study it. And when you study it, you should become better at it. Why should you want to become better at something and then never do it again? But please continue.
Alice: Nobody ever tells us to study the right things we do. We're only supposed to learn from the wrong things. But we are permitted to study the right things other people do. And sometimes we're even told to copy them.
Mad Hatter: That's cheating!
Alice: You're quite right, Mr. Hatter. I do live in a topsy-turvy world. It seems like I have to do something wrong first, in order to learn from what not to do. And then, by not doing what I'm not supposed to do, perhaps I'll be right. But I'd rather be right the first time, wouldn't you?
Kimberly Kirberger
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4
LESSONS FROM OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
If A is success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is X, Y is play and Z is keeping your mouth shut.
Albert Einstein
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College Wisdom Seldom Exercised in the Summer
It's time once again for college students to be reminded of the Law of Diminishing Tuition Fruition.
This is the law that says: ''The twenty thousand dollars you spent on your education this past year renders you worthless in the real world this summer.''
Mother Nature reminds college students of this law each May through a phenomenon called "the summer job."
The summer job has two purposes. It allows the college student to earn one-millionth of the money he'll be needing to get through the next school year. And it reminds him that he's got absolutely nothing on the ball as far as Summer Job Bosses are concerned.
I had more summer jobs than I care to remember. I was a maid, a waitress, a telephone operator, a waitress, a salesperson, a waitress, a clerk, a waitress and a waitress another six or so times.
The odd thing was, it didn't matter what the job was because I always did the same thing: I always did whatever no one else wanted to do!
As a resort waitress one summer, it was my job to make
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the orange juice in the morning. This wasn't just ordinary orange juice. It came in cans the size of driveway-sealer containers that I believe were stored on Pluto to make sure the juice was definitely and thoroughly frozen.
My work involved making orange juice with a sledge hammer. After two weeks, when I began looking like Hulk Hogan, I decided to make a suggestion. This made me nervous, but I took the chance, as I was so big and strong by then.
"Wouldn't it be easier to defrost this stuff the night before?" I said.
"What are you, a college wise guy?" sneered the boss. "We serve fresh frozen orange juice here, not defrosted frozen orange juice. Now bang on it."
Probably the worst summer job I ever had was the year I was the Wink Girl.
Wink was a soft drink during the 1960s that never made it. My job was to dress up in an outfit that looked like a Wink cana lime green skirt and yellow polyester topand promote the product by driving around with the Wink Man in the Wink Truck.
I never knew where the Wink Man came from. He looked like the type of gentleman who knew where a lot of bodies were buried in landfills. I always suspected he was given the identity of Wink Man under the Federal Witness Protection Program after he squealed on "the boss." Anyway, he just drifted into the local employment office one day looking for a Wink Girl.
Our job was to stop the Wink Truck wherever there might be thirsty people so that the Wink Girlmecould give out free samples of Wink while the Wink Manhimstudied his racing form in the truck.
On my first day, the Wink Man had a problem with my performance. We were parked in front of a high school as summer school let out, and I was pouring little samples as fast as my spigot could handle.
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The Wink Man called me around the front of the truck.
"Wink," he said.
"What?" I said.
"You have to wink when you give out the soda," he said. "It's part of the job."
"But young boys consider winking an invitation of sorts," I said.
"What are you, a college wise guy?" he sneered. "You're the Wink Girl. You wink."
So I went back and began winking at high school boys. All that summer I winked at teenagers, old ladies, construction workers and small children. My left eye was exhausted by the end of each day, but I had a lot of dates.
My own boy is going through this summer-job ordeal right now. Last summer, his job was "mudbuster."
"That's my title," he told me when he got the job. "Mudbuster."
At work, he asked for an explanation of his duties.
"What's the job description?" he asked. "I mean, what does a mudbuster do?"
"Go over there and bust up that mud, boy," the boss told him.
"Why?" asked my boy.
"What are you, a college wise guy?" he sneered. "You think you're too good for busting mud?"
"No, sir," said my boy, who was taught to be respectful of all life forms. "It's just that a worker is generally more productive when he understands the purpose of his task."
Chicken Soup for the College Soul Page 11