B.S. 1000

It is universally acknowledged that in addition to a major, all undergraduates major in bullshit. It does not have to be this way. Every student has imagined aversion of herself that never misses a house party or a reading assignment. Thankfully, every technological advance of the past 20 years has, in some way, made it easier to imitate preparedness for class on a half hours' notice. 

This is not to say that the old referents we have of university life—I picture, here, young men in school-colored sweaters carrying a stack of thick books for young women in hoop skirts seated in silent, venerable, library rooms—is entirely outdated. Why, to "live in the library" has become a somewhat trendy badge of honor. The day a security guard got fired for locking a girl in after closing, may very well been the proudest day of the lucky sophomore's life. To become such a fixture to the site of serious learning that your personhood is disavowed, that you are forgotten entirely, that you become part of the architecture, can be worth the strangest of cool points within snobby, young, literate social circles

I would say, however, that all our age of instant access to knowledge encourages a new standard for the kind of skills it should take to merit a degree. Bullshitting is, I say with no squeamishness, is one of the fundamental life skills of the liberal arts major. If by your last semester, you can't orate competently for half the morning about a book you've never read, you would not pass my class. Period. If you cannot piggyback off of a classmate's comment, derail your Lit course with a 30-minutes discussion of social-psychology and make your teacher thank you for it, you aren't ready for a degree. Period.

Because, let me warn you, young professionals have bullshit down to a science.

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