5 Prerequisites for Being a College Professor

Professors.  Sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them, and sometimes you’re absolutely horrified by their lack of judgment in allowing a woman to be fucksawed in an after-class demonstration.  But regardless of how we feel about our professors, the inevitable truth is that we spend an average of 15-20 hours a week listening to them speak (except for Comm majors, who rarely scratch the double-digits).  With all this time we spend with these educational overlords, we begin to pick up on their habits pretty quickly.  These are the five things that, judging from experience, are crucial characteristics of anyone aspiring to be a college professor.

To operate Powerpoint, you must first find the Holy Grail.

5.  A Complete Inability to Use Basic Technology

It’s quite astounding that someone can be intelligent and driven enough to be a leader in their field of study, but never learn how to operate a fucking projector.  If one were to tally up every minute of lecture lost because a professor was trying to figure out how to play a 30-second video clip, it very well might eclipse the number of minutes spent trying desperately to set a high score on Tetris during lecture.  The funniest part is when the professor, frantically trying to remedy the situation, starts mindlessly changing settings on his/her computer, which – more often that not – already has Mandarin as the default language.

 

4.  An Irreconcilable Misunderstanding of Appropriate E-mail Length

Picture this: It’s a warm, sunny Friday afternoon.  You’ve just gone for a lengthy walk around campus, or perhaps you’ve already started day-drinking in preparation for a Disney Channel Original Movie Marathon.  You quickly check your e-mail before dinner, when suddenly – BAM!  It’s a 3,000-word juggernaut from a professor, providing your 200-person lecture with a detailed explanation of necessary background information for the next week’s readings.  This distasteful offense is especially common among professors of history or political science classes.  Instead of listing a very simply who-what-where-when-why-how, professors generally prefer to word-vomit an incoherent score of paragraphs explaining every detail of 11^th century Indian Ocean trade that you could ever imagine.

Smiling sadistically as you attempt to pronounce his last name

3.  Being Indian

This is fairly self-explanatory.

2.  A Devastating Lack of Visual Coherence

I’ll be honest – I am by no means a fashionista.  In fact, I’d go so far to say I rarely give fucks about whether or not what I’m wearing would give a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy cast member a deadly heart attack.  But sometimes professors take it too far.  For example, consider something I call the “4-inch buffer” – the area within 4 inches above and below the belt buckle, where a male professor’s tie never manages to reside.  Typically, it’s either scraping their knees or hovering at their ribcage.

Style unawareness can also be incredibly adorable.

There are several other notable styles of a professor’s failure to comply with basic fashion norms; the “shirt-so-wrinkled-that-you-can’t-actually-comprehend-how-many-times-they’ve-worn-it”, the “pants-they’ve-worn-seven-lectures-in-a-row,” and the “sweater vest” are among the most common infractions.

1.  A Tendency to Namedrop at Every Possible Opportunity

Here’s a peculiar difference between college students and professors.  College students like to ascribe a specific title to each relationship; instead of merely saying “she’s my friend,” we prefer to say “she’s my PoliSci 385 Study Buddy!” or “she was Halloween hook-up #4!” or “she’s my pledge wife!” Professors, on the other hand, have one word for everyone they know:  Colleague (henceforth referred to as the C-bomb).  Professors throw around the C-bomb when it makes them appear to have more authority.  Phrases like “my [C-bomb] in the U.N.” and “my [C-bomb] in the Senate” are thus very common phrases used by professors, when in reality, it would probably be more suitable for them to simply refer to them as “an expert in the field who I kind of met once and who sadly declined the offer to sign my breasts.”

What to Expect on Gone Greek Night

Sorostitutes:

Part 1: Singing.  You know your songs. YOUR CHAPTER HAS THE BEST DAMN SONGS IN THE ENTIRE QUAD. Even if the lyrics seem like they were written by Tommy Wiseau, sing them with pride. If you sound stupid, you’ll sound stupid in solidarity. And let’s face it, stupidity in numbers is almost never shameful.

Those songs are the closest to hazing NU sororities will ever come. So if you’re uncomfortable, go chill with a sister elsewhere. Seriously. Nobody’s going to judge you because you don’t want to sing songs about how whorish you are. And it’s likely nobody’s going to notice your absence because you’re new and no one knows to ask where you are yet. So if you’re weirded out by weird lines or choreography, pretend you need to leave temporarily to go get special hypoallergenic tampons from Elder. Or something.

If you're presented with roses arranged like this, you may want to avoid the fratstar responsible for it.

If you’re awkward about receiving roses (like me), don’t put them down on a chair and pretend like you don’t have any (like me), because boys will think you actually don’t have any and they will give you more and you will have an awkward bouquet at the end of the night, and you will realize very slowly that it’s not because they find you attractive but rather because they see you have none in your hand and are either taking pity or priming you for a later hookup, and only you will know this, and you can’t/don’t explain that to any of your new sisters giving you the stinkeye because they will not understand and also because you kinda want them to think you looked especially hot and deserved the roses (no seriously I don’t know anyone who that happened to). If you’re kind of person who brags about receiving roses…don’t. In fact, drop now, you’re clearly obnoxious.

Part 2: Dancing.  We’ll be saying this again on Dillo, but pace yourself if you’re drinking. Clearly the class of 2015 has issues with this (how many hospitalizations did you have fall quarter?) Don’t get super-trashed on the bus and be vomming on the dance floor the rest of the night, because you will probably get sent home, the Sober Sister sharing your cab will probably resent you, and the likeliness that you will hook up is literally nil. Also, treat your location with respect. You really don’t want to be That Guy.* Don’t make people hate you before you even finish pledging yet.

Gone Greek Night?

As I said earlier, you’re new and no one knows to check up on you yet. So find a buddy if you don’t want to hook up. That said, HAVE FUN. Remember those nights where you have to try to find someone who wants to hook up? Not tonight. Everyone’s single on GGN. Unless you’re not, in which case, don’t be a cheating bitch. Otherwise, go crazy, hon. If there was ever a night where you wanted to know how it feels to wake up in some random fratty’s dorm trying to remember whether the bra you were wearing matched your panties, and are they in the same location, and where that location may  be – go for it. You’ll be sharing stories later. Have a good one.

Or you could pull the Classy Ellie K move, which involves sleeping (no actually, just sleeping) in your awesome superchill super-cozy guy friend’s dingle, waking up sans hangover and going to the house because they have the best granola (which, unless you’re in my sorority, your house doesn’t have the best granola. Sorry).

So in short, don’t expect anything. Have a fun and safe time, represent your chapter- and most importantly, don’t get caught.

Pledges: Get ready to stumble! This is your chance to impress the ladies, sing your heart out and binge drink on a Friday afternoon. You’ll probably start your night pregaming with some brothers or just with your pledge class. Make sure to get absolutely crunk but not so bad that you can’t find the DG house. Once you’re done taking handle pulls in the daylight, you go sing to them fine sorority chicks. Usually, you’ll put their name in a song to make them all feel just so special and unique! Try “We found love in a __(sorority name)__-less place,” that should make them all love you.

NO SEX ON THE DANCE FLOOR, REGARDLESS OF THE LEVEL OF CONSENT

Throughout the night you’ll have roses to bestow onto all the bitchez you wish to make intercourse at. Try to give them out to your friends so that no one knows about your plan to make intercourse at the other ones. At some point in the night you’ll go to the house of the sorority you’re paired with for a nice meal. Eat dat shit. It’ll sober you up and allow you to remember the night (pro tip: Don’t shovel the food into your mouth as fast as you can and demand seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sixty-ninths. You’ll look like a pig).  Once the singing part is over, you can let loose and have some fun. Buses generally leave for the bar from the sorority quad near the house of the sorority you’re paired with between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Go to the bar. Take some awesome shooters with some awesome friends. Soak up each other’s awesomeness. Get kicked out of the bar. Hook up with some hawt girlz . BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T HAVE SEX ON THE DANCEFLOOR. PEOPLE REMEMBER THAT SHIT. That’s all I have to say.

Frat bros: Okay, we remember freshman year, right? Don’t do that shit. Keep it in control, bro. Just take a few shots, dance your ass off and DON’T HAVE SEX ON THE DANCEFLOOR. WHY HAS NO ONE FORGOTTEN THAT SHIT.  Other than that, your night has a lot less pressure. You just dress up, pregame and head to the buses. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll pregame at Cozy or some other fine BYOB establishment in Evanston. This is a great way to cover up your alcohol dependency but be warned: everyone else had the same idea and crowds are more than likely.  One final note: GGN isn’t really about you. It’s a chance for the new pledge classes to scope each other out, feel uncomfortable and try not to vomit. So have fun and get wild, but you should probably avoid bursting in during the middle of a song for a solo. I’m sure you sound great singing “Someone Like Gamma Phi” but everyone will be weirded out.

Other rule: Drink every time Chewbacca and Han Solo "have a moment"

GDI’s: This is not the most fun weekend for a non-Greek but that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to make it interesting. True, there are generally no open frat parties Friday night (and few on Saturday) but that hardly means you can’t get schwastey. Try a drinking game! There are plenty of fun one, like battleshots or Mean Girls. I would advise STRONGLY against the Star Wars Drinking Game, in which the only rule is that you have to chug a handle every time there’s a surprising paternity result. Literally everyone will puke and/or die. So please don’t do it.
If you don’t want to sit with two friends in your dark dorm room (Green Cup, ya dig?), see if you can find a hoppin’ apartment party. Or maybe scope out some other bars for us and report back on which one should be the new Monday night destination. If you’re doing this, aim for a bar within walking distance of everywhere on campus that serves free booze and doesn’t card. Stripper poles are a must.

*That Guy behaviors include: vomiting in unsavory places, being a Motherfucker, destroying shit, vomiting in unsavory places, singing Nickelback songs