we’ll drink to California ’til we wobble in our shoes!
Or, at least, I will. B. will be drinking to ASU, I suspect. There’s a PAC-12 alumni mixer tonight at a bar in downtown Philly. It’ll be nice to revel with my fellow Californians, but I’m more excited about the ASU/CAL rivalry. B. went to ASU so every year we put on our respective colors, put on the game, and trash talk each other’s schools. A little competition is healthy for a relationship. I hope.
As you’re reading this, I’m at the Cal Alumni Association’s Annual Reception for Newly Admitted Students. We alumni are rubbing elbows at the swanky Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia, and charming admitted high school seniors into choosing Cal. These out-of-staters are worth the big bucks.
Cal Day!
Despite my current animosity toward my alma mater, or perhaps because of it, I’ve composed 16 unsolicited pieces of advice for the Cal Class of 2016:
1. Treat with suspicion and contempt any exam that declares itself “take home.” It’ll be twice as much work as an in-class exam, and you won’t do any better.
2. Don’t buy books from the Cal Student Store. Ned’s is a rip-off, too. Shop online.
3. Pick a foreign language your first semester and stick to it! If you graduate without fluency in at least one foreign language, your peers will mock you, and you will feel completely inadequate.
4. You may have been the smartest person in your high school, obviously, but you’re still only 18. You’re going to get stupid drunk or stupid stoned or just plain stupid and lose your clothes. Own the shame and move on.
5. If you plagiarize, there is a good chance your professor will humiliate you in front of a hundred other students. You’ll deserve it, so take it like a (wo)man. No tears.
6. Do not join Berkeley College Republicans. Just please. I’m laughing at you already.
7. No one cares if you’re 20 and still a virgin. No one cares if you’ve slept with 20 people. Just, for the love of Oski, wear a rubber. You can get free condoms all over the place. No excuses.
8. Someone once got caught jerking it in the stacks during finals season. It’s 80% hilarious, 20% disgusting, and 100% the reason I don’t use library books. You’ve been warned.
9. Do the Bare Run once. It’s the only time the administration won’t arrest you for running through the stacks butt-ass naked. Bonus points if you throw glitter as you go.
10. Take the time to appreciate politically relevant graffiti:
The administration will have it down before you can say, “She’s just working her way through college.”
11. Prepare to do real research. Berkeley is, foremost, a research university. If this doesn’t appeal to you, I’m afraid you’ve made a grave mistake.
12. Don’t wear anything Stanfurd unless you want people to yell vulgarities at you. Seriously.
13. Talk at least one of your seminar professors into holding class next to Strawberry Creek on a nice day. Jump on the first seminar that sounds interesting. The same topics don’t usually come around twice.
14. Learn the Cal Drinking Song so you’ll be prepared when a spontaneous chorus of “Oh, we had a little party down in Newport!” breaks out.
15. Get to know your professors. You’ll learn that true genius is often quite hilarious, as well.
16. Most importantly, AnonCon.
This is exactly how I feel right now:
Here’s an article that kept me tossing and turning until 3:30 this morning: Struggling for Work: Broken Dreams of a New Generation
And here are some highlights for those of you so removed from the current crisis that you don’t think you need to bother reading that article:
“Although college has never been more vital to success, degrees aren’t worth what they were a generation ago: There are 80,000 bartenders in America with B.A.’s.”
[Fun fact: I was recently rejected from a job as a bartender. Also as a food server, barista, administrative assistant [x23], groundskeeper/gardener, research assistant [x6], dog handler, babysitter, Macy’s sales associate, Gap sales associate, editor/proofreader, and bank teller.]
“While U.S. unemployment is 8.3 percent, unemployment for 20- to 24-year-olds is 13.8 percent – the highest rate for any group in America. Unemployment for 20-year-olds reached 19.4 percent in Philadelphia in 2010.
“Since 2010, just 54 percent of young adults ages 18 to 24 have been employed, the lowest level since 1948, when the government began keeping track, federal data show.
“Unlike their parents, millennials – also called Generation Y – are starting out with greater responsibility for their own health insurance and retirement. Young adults, in fact, remain the most uninsured group in the United States.”
[My physician generously refilled my birth control without making me come in for an appointment. Sounds great, until you realize that this year I have to skip my annual physical because I can't afford the $350 appointment. Hopefully I don't have cervical, ovarian, uterine, breast, or any other cancer. Of course, it doesn't really matter whether I know if I'm sick, because it's not like I'd have the insurance to treat it, anyway. My birth control, which once upon a time cost $20, is now more than $160 without insurance. So, my choice was to go without birth control or put the purchase on my credit card. On my Visa it went, because prenatal care or an abortion without insurance is a lot more than $160, and condoms may be cheaper, but two forms of birth control are more effective than one.]
“The result: Students have to borrow a lot of money. Along with their diplomas each May, two out of three graduates are handed a staggering load of student-loan debt, averaging $25,250 – the highest in U.S. history.”
[I guess I'm lucky. I sacrificed going to a 4-year university right away, so my principal debt amounts to only $22,000. On which I am supposed to begin repayment in two months, even though there is fewer than $100 in my bank account and a balance of $1,900 on my credit card.]
I will anathematize the next person who tells me I’m “not trying hard enough,” “being too picky,” or “have too high of expectations.” I god damn dare you to look me in the face and tell me that. Truly, I would just love to pick apart your life and tell you all the ways that you’re inadequate. I worked my ass off to get into the best public school in the world, for the best education possible; I put myself through Berkeley without a penny from my parents; I took a 20-unit semester, against the advice of not one, but two advisors, and graduated early to save myself $8,000 in student loans.
I had no expectation of a lush desk job with a corner office right out of school, but I think I had the right to expect a little more than this.
Not so good:
I’m still unemployed. Apparently I’m not even “qualified” to be a dog handler. So insulting.
Noe’s breath smells like an untreated syphilis infection, and Sebastian somehow pooped all over himself.
No more refills on my birth control prescription and no health insurance. Eugh.
I really want to relive my childhood with a Super Nintendo and Donkey Kong Country and I can’t.
Diploma frames are $160.
Not so bad:
TheCanaryReview loved my post and asked me to be a regular contributor.
Every season of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix
Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme Eggs
Shooting B.’s Nerf gun at the cats when they’re misbehaving (or when I want a good laugh).
B. whistling the Super Mario tune while he plays Portal.
F’ing MARVELOUS:
My diploma finally arrived! Three and a third months I waited, very impatiently, for this glorious piece of paper.
It’s even more beautiful in real life.
