They sit in my office or the conference room (if there's a test coming and a crowd assembles) and work work work - they get cramps in their hands from all the writing. When I tell them a B is a good grade, they tell me it isn't good enough. They don't want to be doctors because it looks cool on Grey's Anatomy. They want to go to the Carribbean and bring starving babies back from the brink of death and they have a tear in their eye when they talk about it.
They have bags under their eyes and big dreams in their hearts and they understand that the dream is at the end of a long hard road.And every year the fucking Greek system poaches a few of them from me with a hologram of "connections" and every year it fucking pisses me the fuck off.
Pledge "week" (it goes on for like a fucking month - oh yeah, there will be lots of f-words from here to the end - why do they call it a "week"?) leads up to the 3rd of 4 major exams. And Exam III is on drop-deadline-eve. I just looked at my fucking roster and my fucking favorites have been cut in half. As usual.
Know what "connections" are good for? Finding a fucking place to get a fucking drink when you're out of fucking town and need a fucking drink because you hate your fucking job because you were going to save babies in developing nations, but you took a W in Gen Chem so med schools put you on their "send letter about how competitive we are to soften the blow" list.
When you were in my office with your friends spilling your guts about where you came from and how you got out and how you want to do more, did anyone take your phone, tell you what to wear, or tell you to stare straight with your mouth shut? No? It was nice, right? When you were in with your "sisters" and they were telling you to keep your head straight and your shoulders square and that your hem wasn't right and you weren't getting your phone back for an extra hour because of it, did it cross your mind that if you told them what you told us, they wouldn't give a flying fuck?
Why does this institution exist? Why do colleges allow this stupid fucking anti-academic fucking shit to go on?
I feel like someone brainwashed and kidnapped my kids every year at this time. Bye, kiddo, it was great knowing you. I hope your old (actual) friends enjoy building the future you had wanted.
--Love, WotC
Our parallel week (or whatever) was a bit earlier this year. At first I thought all the young women walking across campus, most in white, and some in angel wings (and all, apparently, in glitter; it's been some time, and a good deal of rain has fallen and wind has blown, and the sidewalks still sparkle a bit in the dark) looked kind of cheerful and purposeful (and at least a bit less blonde, and a bit more naturally brown-skinned, than the stereotypical picture of a "sorority girl" in my mind, and one was even using a wheelchair, though I can't say there was a great deal of body-type diversity), but then they all got together in one place not far from my office, and they started screaming, non-stop, for over an hour. And although I know the screaming was meant to convey enthusiasm or having fun or something along those lines, my nervous system interprets screaming as "somebody's in trouble; do something!!!!" (which is one of many reasons I don't do sports or concerts or other mass events, and even felt a bit uncomfortable at times during the Women's March). So my nascent sympathy for the whole endeavor had definitely evaporated by the time I had to make my way through the rally or whatever it was on the way home.
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly not sure exactly who on our campus joins sororities, what they hope to get out of it, or how much time it takes. I mostly teach engineers these days, and greek-letter activities (except maybe truly-academic groups) don't seem to figure much in their lives.
And a definitely "boo" to the female-on-female body/dress-policing. I hate it when women undermine each other.
This is so real, WotC. Everyone who's taught has seen this. Given my uni's demographics, I don't lose that many of the already small "students inspired to serve others like themselves" contingent, but we do lose some of the top students, all the same.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteI know some of the societies are academic oriented - I can kind of see those panning out.
The rest - I don't get why the university allows it.