During my final few months at UNH, I have been taking a class by the name of "History of the Modern World" which UNH, in its infinite wisdom, decreed I should take to make sure I don't come out of college completely ignorant of the past. On the surface, it is an entry-level history major class; however, lurking beneath the surface is its true function, at least in my eyes: showcase of the stupidity of UNH students.
Now let's get some stuff clear. I'm going to berate two groups of people here: UNH students and history majors. I love history: it is one of my favorite things to read about. I hate history majors: they are lumped in with pysch majors and communications majors in a group I like to call "My Future Cashiers". UNH is a decent enough state school, which I ended up at after a year at WPI completely wiped out my savings.* I like UNH: clean, quiet campus. Wonderful professors (in CS, anyway). And above all: cheap.
However, because it is a state school, it often reminds me more of a high school than a university. The amount of popped collars exceeds the physical number of people on campus.** The goal of most of these kids seems to be nothing more than to get laid, with alcohol a close second. These are fine pursuits to be sure, but when your hung over ass almost throws up on me while I try to dodge your stumbling attempt to cross the street at 9 am on a Wednesday, I may grow a little irked at your dedication to your craft.
However, I have mostly high-level CS courses, notably devoid of this stereotype. The only gen ed I take this semester is the aforementioned history class, which is full to the brim of people that remind me of high school, and why it fucking sucked. One kid in particular's insistence that Communism worked perfectly really took the life out of me today. It seems like everyone has this kid in history class at some time in their life: fat, strident, ill-washed, and smugly sure of his superiority over the rest of these sheep who think capitalism is the bee's knees. His stained Che shirt, which he wears without a trace of irony (slightly distorted by his massive gut), is as much a symbol of his stupidity as it is any resistance against The Man.
Now, I remember in WPI this kind of kid existed as well. For some reason, I took a Shakespeare class there, and a version of this blob manifested himself in that classroom as well, often loudly opining that we were idiots and dolts beyond measure for thinking that Shakespeare existed. He was OBVIOUSLY a group of different authors working as a collective!***
The difference at WPI is that the professor fucking called him out, asking for evidence that that was true, and citing his own opinion that Shakespeare was quite real with well-reasoned arguments. Clue entire class chuckling at cookie-cutter nonconformist getting owned.
But at UNH, this never happens. The professor thanks him for his valuable contribution, and I groan and slouch down in my chair. Is this worth it? What the hell am I getting out of this exchange? Truth be told, I spend the vast majority of time in that class thinking about startups. They hold more interest for me these days than anything UNH has to offer.
* Thank you, three consecutive tuition hikes over the course of one year! You made my already 40K a year education completely unattainable!
** Seen crossing commuter parking lot: A kid with no less than three popped collars: two shirts, one fashionably rumpled black blazer. And a tan no one in New England could ever have.
*** Cue lecture on the uses of collectivism, with frequent interjections about how much he wishes he could suck Lenin's preserved dick. Or maybe I'm just reading between the lines there.
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