Dr. Wizard

If American civilization is ever snuffed out by some sort of worldwide pandemic, asteroid crash, or global-warming induced Ice Age, my hope is that the universe’s future archaeologists will find a carefully preserved DVD player, an untouched 52-inch plasma TV, and a hermetically sealed Net-Flix vault.  Nothing will be better able to tell these future great thinkers about The United States’ culture than a year spent watching our movies.  They will see our conceptions of beauty, and they will come to know us through the very medium that we as a society hold to be most valuable.

Undoubtedly, these future citizens of the universe will draw some interesting conclusions.  They will, for example, come to understand that the four years (or seven – in the case of Van Wilder) that America’s youth spent in the 21st century as university undergraduates were part of a hallowed and cherished coming-of-age ritual celebrated in a disproportionate number of films.  They will also, quite probably, assume that this “Samuel L. Jackson” fellow who appeared in so many of our stories was in fact a family of identical quintuplets – only this could possibly explain “his” ubiquity to the future historian.  (My prediction: “Enough is enough!  I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” will be the most quoted phrase of the 34th century.)  But I digress.  So, back to our Hollywood glorification of Ivy-covered walls, and on to today’s lesson.

In the last 30 years, there have been, as I’ve noted, a plethora of movies made about college life, and as an avid philosopher of the college experience, you can bet that I’ve seen them all.  Now let me be clear, The Paper Chase, Higher Learning, With Honors, PCU, and maybe even How High (starring Reginald Noble and Clifford Smith) are better movies than the one I’m going to recommend that you watch, but it is my belief that no film better captures the multiple directions in which college freshmen find themselves pulled than Dead Man on Campus.

“Really,” you must certainly find yourself asking at this point if you’ve seen the movie.  “Wasn’t that an MTV Films project meant to revive the career of Zach Morris, built upon the premise that if your roommate commits suicide, the university is forced to give you straight A’s?”  Yes, that’s all true.  But if you forget about the last half of the movie, where Josh and Connor hysterically run through a series of roommates looking for Mr. Z (Daleman’s most depressed student), and you re-watch the first 40 minutes carefully, you’ll find that Dead Man on Campus is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of college life.  There are mixed-gender dormitories, there are fake IDs, there are students taking Adderall, there are consequences for not studying, and there are a group of professors who take themselves way too seriously.  There is the availability of alcohol, there are students getting it on while their roommate is present, there is the availability of weed, there are the expectations placed on students by their parents, and there is the need to maintain a certain GPA to hold onto a scholarship.

There is also, as Josh quickly finds out, no one to tell him to study or to force him to go to class.  In fact, more often than not, Connor ends up offering Josh tempting reasons to skip these responsibilities altogether.  What Dead Man on Campus portrays is the very real possibility that you’ll have at least one friend who doesn’t take the academic challenges of college as seriously as they should, and they will want you to join them.  (Secretly, they are hoping that your choice to do so will validate their own decision, and assuage the guilt they have for wasting their parents’ money.)  But that’s the reason that I’m taking my time to type out these pieces of advice for you, the college students of America.  I’m here to tell you that getting stoned all day and playing Guitar Hero can only take you so far in life.  It’s like King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, or The Byrds sang in 1965 – “To everything (Turn, Turn, Turn), there is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn), and a time for every purpose, under Heaven.”  Bottom line: you must find a way to balance your time, or you’ll end up like Connor, working for Flushels, the Toilet Cleaning Clown.

NOTE: As difficult as I find this to believe, according to imdb.com, Snakes on a Plane is a better movie than Dead Man on Campus.  That’s just fucking crazy.

Joe Webb teaches American literature at Saint Louis University, where he spends equal time discussing Entourage and Leaves of Grass.  His book, Dr. Wizard’s Advice for College Students, is scheduled for national release in the fall of 2009, and will include lessons on everything from Greek Life to Greek literature.  For more of Dr. Wizard’s Advice, check out www.dr-wizard.com.

Every college expert I’ve ever heard gives the following advice: sit in the front of the class, take notes, participate in class discussion, and go visit your professor during office hours.  The point of all this wisdom is to ensure that a) you are engaged in the material, and b) your professor knows who you are.  As far as basic vanilla advice goes, this stuff is okay.  But there’s a reason that cookies and cream is better than vanilla – it’s a more sophisticated taste experience.  Why eat vanilla ice cream when you know that there is cookies and cream out there?  This is the cookies and cream version of the advice your counselors give you about succeeding academically.

As you maneuver through your four years on campus, your powers of scientific observation will quickly lead you to understand that there are only two types of college classes – the big, and the small.  The big class is the kind typically seen in movies, and is most prevalent at large state universities where rock-star professors deliver lectures to an auditorium of 500 students (think Good Will Hunting).  My advice for those of you who find yourself in several of these big classes is this: sit in the back.  If the lecture is interesting, take notes.  If it isn’t, do your other homework.  I learned very early on as an undergraduate that just by showing up to one of these big classes, your subconscious brain soaks up the important information.  This leaves your conscious brain free to fill out crossword puzzles, text message, or – if you are motivated – complete other assignments.

Now, on to the small class.  The small class consists of somewhere between 10 and 50 students, and a large chunk of your grade (whether you realize it or not) is based on participation.  In this situation, it doesn’t matter where you sit – it’s not like you can hide from your professor – but it does matter how often you talk.  As a teacher of this kind of class, I can assure you that I give better grades to students I like and, for the most part, I like students who participate.  It’s just human nature – if your professor gets to know you as a person, they will probably feel as if they have a vested interest in your future.  But, there is one important exception to this general rule, and thus we now arrive at Lesson #3: Think Bronze Medal.  Your goal in the small class is to be the person who talks the third most often.

Why?  Because out of the two people who talk more often than you, your professor will hate one of their guts.  Watch – as the semester develops, there will be two students who try to dominate class discussion by arguing with each other.  Even though your professor may not let you see it on his or her face, he or she will think that one of these students makes good points, and that one of these students is a moron.  Stay out of the primary argument unless you want to be in danger of being considered the moron.  Again, you can guarantee yourself an A in the course if you can be the conciliator whose comments make you seem open-minded and likeable.  Think of it this way, in Season Two of “The Office” when they hold the Office Olympics, Michael gets the gold medal, Dwight gets the silver, and Jim gets the bronze.  Which one of these three guys would you want to be? (Or date? – if you are female or homosexual.)

Joe Webb teaches American literature at Saint Louis University, where he spends equal time discussing Entourage and Leaves of Grass.  His book, Dr. Wizard’s Advice for College Students, is scheduled for national release in the fall of 2009, and will include lessons on everything from Greek Life to Greek literature.  For more of Dr. Wizard’s Advice, check out www.dr-wizard.com.