As my regular readers are aware, I recently became a Knight of the Boston University Pub. Besides granting me the right to tipple from a special tankard, my newly bestowed noble title is also indicative of the amount of time I spend in my little fiefdom. (I’m there right now, as a matter of fact.)
It’s not all about numbing the pain, of course. I’ve always enjoyed playing amateur campus sociologist and there really is no better place for it than in the bowels of The Castle. From of-age undergrads to creaking graduate students, the pub is concentrated essence of student life. It also happens to be that, around this time of year, one can see a change in attitudes among the pub’s patrons. Before anyone condemns my fellow dipsomaniacs, let me say in our defense that I truly believe these descriptions apply to Boston University’s more serious students. After all, to be at the pub, one must be on campus, therefore keeping oneself outside the corrupting influence of Brighton’s Boston College polity.
Physically, midterms have the same effect on students, regardless of what degree they’re pursuing. Bags appear under eyes and with each day, they grow larger, longer, darker. Mentally, moods follow suit, faltering and growing darker themselves. Beer orders that once were based on gastronomic principle sink to bases of cost and percentage. The difference between undergrads and grads lies in how each group deals with the stress inherent to the period between midterms and finals.
Although it was many moons ago, I do have a vague memory of my undergraduacy and I can therefore appreciate the means by which today’s young people deal with the trials and tribulations of exams, as I once did the same thing. I’ve certainly lost it in my old age, but it’s evident that stress in the undergraduate leads directly to an increase in diastolic pressure. Masculine boasts of various feats of strength become more frantic, the objects of feminine shrieks of excitement become more superficial, and all of it is traced directly back to an attempt to maintain some semblance of sanity in the face of an academic gauntlet. Granted, I never squealed with girlish delight over anything (save for Hanson, but that was only once) but my contemporaries did and I certainly blew my own horn over my physical prowess. (I once partly lifted a Toyota Corolla, so it wasn’t totally baseless.)
Speaking of sanity, that’s what separates undergraduates from graduates, specifically in that as graduate students, we’ve lost ours. I’m not sure where I heard it, but a recent study ranked institutions by the number of billionaire graduates. As you might expect, number one was Harvard, but number two was (surprise!) no institution at all. If we really wanted to be the next François Pinault or Sheldon Adelson, we should’ve stopped going to school a long time ago. Yet here we are, like a bunch of sheepskin-addled shermheads, clutching with one hand a pint glass and with the other either the side of a table or, failing that, our foreheads.
But again, I’m merely an amateur observerationalist of campus society. Those who come and go from my own personal Luxembourg leave indelible marks on the place, and I merely report. Now if I could just get that oven for all the peasants to bake their bread in, I’d still be stressed out, but not as hungry.
