YOU KNOW YOU’RE AN HONORS STUDENT
WHEN:
Contributed by the Second year Honors Students, Spring 2004
(An
affectionate poke in the ribs of this fine Program)
o You begin fantasizing about T-shirts with phrases like “It’s all about hegemony” and “Fight the tyranny of master narratives!” written on them
o Every day you walk out of class more confused than when you walked in
o You accuse everyone you meet of “supporting oppressive social constructions”
o You shake your head and feel sorry for people for being “brainwashed”
o Homework assignments include watching the movies Akira, Jurassic Park, and Scratch
o You wonder why other students have such a hard time registering for classes
o You stare at people blankly when they ask you to sign a petition against tuition increases
o Your teachers are often far more entertaining than the actual subjects being taught
o The line between “B.S.-ing” and “cognitive thinking” begins to dissipate
o Your professors are entirely too sympathetic with paper deadlines…not that it’s a bad thing…
o You write 10-20 page papers on video games, B horror movies, Muppet characters, cooking advertisements, and the evolution of the number zero
o One of your professors tells you something is fine, while the other one freaks out about it and can’t believe that you did something so stupid and expected it to receive a passing grade
o Everywhere you turn, there’s something that makes you say, “Hey, we were just talking about that in class…”
o The figurative light bulb over your head has gone on so many times your landlady’s starting to question you about the electric bill
o You develop running gags with your fellow Honors students centering around “big” words
o You start claiming ownership of said “big” words
o Every time said “big” word is mentioned, the whole class looks at you, no matter what the context
o You start learning more personal information about certain professors than you know about your significant other
o You ponder the significance of the phrase “significant other”
o Other homework assignments include listing your favorite songs, going on road trips, and flipping through magazines to “find yourself”
o You spend 3 seconds cracking a joke and 4 hours at the library dissecting what it means, its social and political significance, and what other people “in the field” have to say about it
o The originality of your thesis is more important than your actual paper
o You want your professors to do stand-up (and you’d pay to see it, too)
o You claim Dr. Larsen as your personal savior
o You consider yourself an “Honors Thug”
o People start to mistake you for the librarian
o You consider any assignment under 6 pages a “short” paper
o Whenever someone complains about writing single-page papers, you dismiss them as being a “baby”
o Even the most convoluted language makes sense to you…and you start using it yourself
o You start to wonder what that fourth credit is really for…
o “Hegemony!” is a war cry
o “I can’t, I have to write a paper” actually becomes an honest, legitimate excuse
o Asking questions becomes more important than finding answers
o You start to realize EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER KNOWN IS A LIE
o You start advising fellow students about materials they can use for their own papers…since you’ve already written a paper on it
o You need more than one floppy disk to save all your papers for the semester
o Every time someone expresses a negative opinion about something, you are quick to say they are “narrow minded”, but then apologize and state that “every idea has its merit”
o All your homework starts to look the same
o Blank stares are such a common occurrence that you don’t worry when somebody gives you one
o People in your non-Honors class start to look downright lazy and stupid, even if you know they aren’t
o You can’t stop laughing at even the most serious advertisements
o You actually start getting excited when you hear your professor say, “Get into groups and discuss…”
o PowerPoint, the Internet, and your MLA handbook become your new best friends
o It really, really bothers you when you can’t figure out which side Apollo was on during the Trojan War
o During oral presentations, you worry about time constraints because you might not have enough time to speak about all the information you have
o You refuse to vote, but only to save your sanity
o You can find almost any book you need in the library without looking at Consuls
o Homework assignments also include writing your own version of Creation and staring at yourself naked in a mirror
o You can argue for or against anything
o You can make concrete connections between the most random things imaginable… like how your brain and applesauce DO have something in common
o You criticize criticisms
o You write essays for “yes” or “no” questions
o You can’t remember the last time you answered “yes” or “no” outright
o You no longer believe in “yes” or “no questions, period
o You walk into your non-Honors classes wondering where the other professor went to
o You’d prefer to debate the relevance of Freud than participate in Thirsty Thursday
o You are able to debate Freud while participating in Thirsty Thursday
o You bring class-related newspaper articles to class just to watch your professors’ reactions to them
o You know how to pronounce “Hiroshima” correctly
o You know more about Japan than you do about the U.S.
o The work you do for your Honors classes takes priority over that for your major
o You have participated in “communal copying”
o You consider the phrase “over-analyzing” pejorative
o Your professors are constantly trying to get you to leave the country
o You talk so much in class that your mouth runs dry
o You skip class only to work on papers for other classes
o You start to feel guilty about wearing Abercrombie and Fitch, driving an SUV, and ever reading Seventeen
o You start naming your pets Phaedrous, Mayazaki, and…Dr. Larsen
o The standard greeting between Honors students is “We don’t have anything due for [name of class], do we?”
o You dread when people ask what classes you are taking because you know it will take you at least twenty minutes to explain
o You have a hard time describing exactly what your papers are about
o You know how to cite yourself in papers…and you do. Frequently.
o You seriously doubt your ability to graduate in four years
o You are frightened only by thoughts and ideas…including your own
o When given a page limit on a paper, you have to cheat by using 1.5 instead of double spacing, making the margins 1 inch instead of 1.5, and condensing the character spacing…and you’re still over the limit
o Otherwise you have the opposite problem: you use 1.8 inch margins, 2.2 spacing, Courier font, and count the cover page and bibliography as “pages”…and you’re still one line below the minimum
o Your professors strongly encourage you to disagree with them, but you end up adopting most of their opinions anyway
o Your end-of-year evaluations take about twenty minutes to fill out, unless you just don’t bother reading it and fill in all “A”s
o You’ve had Dr. McKeon more than once, and odds are you’ll have him next semester, too
o You use the most obscure references imaginable and sound smart because of them
o You know so much…yet you feel you know nothing
o When the canon is brought up, you don’t automatically think “artillery”
o It’s physically impossible for you to write anything under two pages
o Your professor has said, "Oops, I forgot to buy that book!" or one has said to the other, “What are we doing today in class again?”
o If you are white, male, heterosexual, American and middle/upper class, you feel personally responsible for all the wrongs in the world.
o You cringe when you realize you are about to get to the point in a conversation where you will have to say, "Well, I'm an Honors student, so..."
o You feel angry at—yet strangely sorry for—anyone who mentions they declined acceptance to the Honors program
o You find yourself uttering repeatedly, "If you were in [name of Honors class] you wouldn't feel that way"
o You have read books or watched movies for class that have made you feel like you needed to take a long, hot shower
o Your reaction paper needs a bibliography longer than some of your research papers
o Oral presentations take 5 days to prepare and 5 minutes to do
o Classes that require less than 5 books are seen as “light reading” classes
o Anything under 50 pages is considered “light reading”
o You consider yourself a nerd…and are proud of it!
o The only things that make sense to you are paradoxes
o By the end of the semester, you are reminded how you earned that fourth credit and how well deserved it was
o By the end of the semester, your brain feels like it’s too small for your skull
o You often wonder what “the point” is, until you realize…there is no point
o A part of you is actually sad when the semester is over…
o You wonder why all school programs aren’t built like this
o You are not surprised at the length of this list
o You recognize this list as unidimensional