The nightmare that is college

By Todd Stadler · Saturday, November 18, 2000 7:01pm

I had that dream again where I'm in college and I've skipped a whole semester's worth of classes and it's finals time. I know next to nothing about the class material, and if I don't pass this class, I'll have to take an extra semester, and my parents will be so disappointed. So I try desperately to begin cramming, but no one will help me because they already know the stuff and would rather play. Even the teacher has decided to not cover the normal material in the last class, choosing to instead have a discussion about the social implications of comic strips.

And then I wake up, vowing to myself that I will study as hard as I can over the next few days, and I'll never, never, never let myself get this far behind again. But then I look at the wall next to my bed and see that big diploma and slowly realize that I got out of college alive and don't ever have to repeat that scenario again.

Still, it's a powerful enough dream to make me second guess any thoughts I might entertain of graduate school. What's odd about this dream is how much it mirrors some of my college experience. There were some classes I attended a handful of times, occasionally sneaking into the professor's office to pick up the handouts so as to avoid being asked "who are you?", or picking up take-home tests without a clue as to what was being tested, hoping it was in the handouts. I mean, I loved college, but I don't miss any of that!