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In This Issue

• Country of Cuba to be Bought and Renamed
• Frat Guy: Hot Bitches, Not Being Gay Crucial for Success in Next Four Years
• It's a Journal, Not a Diary
• Why Columbia Can't Stand Your Kind
• Magna Carma Libertatum
• Point-Counterpoint: My Roommate Keeps Having Sex in Our Room While I’m There
• How to Succeed in Lit Hum Without Really Trying
• (Taxonomy of) Hot College Coeds
• "Dear Mel"
• Class of 2010: Peer Profiles
• The Thinking Freshmen's Guide to Columbia's Libraries
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• Remembrance of Orientations Past
• A Brief Primer on the Basics of Columbia-Speak
• The Hierarchy of Columbia
• Facilitating Your Future Alcohol Addiction
• Orientalation
• An Illustrated Guide of the Columbia Hipster
• The Adventures of Ice-Bitch
• Points of Interest in Morningside Heights
• A Typical Night in McBain
• Portrait of A Loyal Member of Our Staff
• Get to Know The Fed’s Staff with Two Truths and a Lie

Stephanie Quan

"Socrates, huge fan! Loved you in Symposium! Any plans for a sequel?"

The seminar. Now that you’re at Columbia, like it or not these classes will form an integral part of your four-year education. Some of you will have plenty of experience with classes of this nature, others none at all. Regardless, the Ivy League is going to expect verbal jewels from each of you sitting in these discussion sections. However, unless you literally lock yourself in your room for the semester you won’t have time to read everything. Using Lit Hum as a case study, every student will at some point find themselves in a situation where they’re going to have to discuss a book they simply haven’t read. In these circumstances you’re going to have to adopt an age-old skill: the fine and subtle art that is bullshitting.

But before covering some of the key approaches, it’s perhaps important to note a recent phenomenon which has occurred in the American idiom of the English language: the insertion of the word “like” into every other word of a sentence. Once upon a time frowned upon, using it today can actually make you sound down-to-earth and confident, so it’s probably advisable that you use it more. Without a doubt, politicians in forty years time will be orating “If you, like, don’t re-value your currency we’ll totally, like, not trade with you”. So jump the bandwagon with this College initiation and reap the benefits.

Yes, sounding confident, even if you don’t know jack shit about what you’re talking about, is key. With this in mind, here are some strategies which you may find useful:

Tool 1: Some Big Fancy Words

“Juxtaposed”: Lots of texts have a clash of subject matter in Lit Hum, and this is the smartest sounding word to use when this happens. For example, in the Iliad Achilles will be hacking some dude’s head off one minute, while blubbering like a baby another. Without having read the book, it’s easy enough to pipe in something like “Achilles’ rage juxtaposed against his scenes of tenderness gives us insight into the human condition.”

“Paradigm”: Any time you think there’s a sweeping generalized statement to be made, this is your word. In Thucydides there’s a bunch about the first democracy in Athens, so you could easily cook up “The institutions in Athens serve as a paradigm so that we as a society can look back upon”, and then bring in some patriotic shit or something.

“Protagonist”: - Don’t say “hero,” Odysseus is a “protagonist!!” Never explain anything in such simple terms when a long, drawn-out statement fills so much more airtime in class discussion. No, Odysseus isn’t trying to get home, “the protagonist must voyage on his trek in journeying back to his homeland where he has been trying to journey back to his homeland on his trek”.

Other big words include predicament, conundrum, pertinent, analogous, and providence. Use them at your discretion.

Tool 2: Quoting Huge Passages

This strategy is inherently failsafe as nothing you quote can possibly be wrong coming from such established authors. The best time to use it is during those awkward silences after your professor asks an unanswered question. Flip through, pick a passage that looks good, say “I know” to break the silence, and quote away.

Tool 3: Using Current Events

This tool becomes especially useful when you want to sound moving and poignant in front of your classmates. Plenty of the texts in Lit Hum involve war and disaster, so pick some current event – the weepier the better – and draw endless comparisons. As with other approaches, the benefit of this one is that you need to know little or nothing of the text you’re discussing. Pick the moral high ground so that your classmates or instructor will feel uneasy about challenging you if they suspect you’re full of shit. Example:

Instructor: What do you think the author’s meaning was behind this book?

Student: I personally find it similar to the genocide in Darfur.

Instructor: But we’re reading Pride and Prejudice.

Student: Just as the weeping mothers in Darfur find no solace, neither will Lizzy in her search for the true love to complete her being.

Instructor: Lizzy and Darcy just got married.

Student: Are you condoning genocide? The wailing little children will never forget the hypocrisy of America! Diversity! Fair trade! Hurricane Katrina!

Instructor: (silence)

This is just the start of your bullshitting career here at Columbia. Remember, there is nothing as important as sounding deep and profound, so ignore those comments about “enjoying the books” or whatever they’re into these days. The secret to success here, and what gives you weight to everything you say, is that you got into this University to begin with and people automatically assume that you’re intelligent. Indeed, college will bring many challenges, O resourceful Ivy student. It’s up to you to find a routine to make your way through these four short years.