From the Academic Wonderland

[Hottentot]

Breaking my self-imposed exile for a while to post this in slight hope that it amuses someone. I wrote it mostly to take a break from the actual writing, but I suppose it serves in this way too. I've met some interesting types of people during the last few years in the academic wonderland. Here are the 14 most memorable of them.



Activist: The Activist is the person whom you will see everywhere, even if you don't want to and try to avoid it. Student organization having a party? The Activist will be the one informing everyone. Who arranged the party? Oh, it was the Activist. Whose idea this party was anyway? Yeah, the Activist came up with it. When you open your local newspaper and see there was a demonstration (no matter what it concerned), you will see the Activist was there waving a megaphone. And somehow, despite of there being hundreds of people there, the journalists always decide to interview the Activist, even if he shockingly enough wasn't involved in arranging the demonstration and just happened to be there somehow. The Activist is easy to spot from the crowd too even if you somehow manage not to know him already: just look for the person wearing a suit or other formal wear, no matter if it makes any sense or not, and speaking by shouting, usually regarding some perceived injustice in the society.


Ancient: The Ancient was once a normal student like you and me, until the magic day came. He started to write his Master's Thesis and understood that soon he would have to leave the safe corridors of the university and face the cold, cruel world all by himself. And thus that day is still going on, years after it first came. The Ancient's plans for the future have completely vanished, because his only future these days is "when I get my thesis done." He still insists using the word "when", even after the freshmen that started studying when he started writing it have already all graduated. The Ancient claims his thesis is not ready yet, because he is "so deep" in the subject and so it takes much more work than your average stupid student's thesis. Despite of this, the 1 % of the Ancients who ever manage to graduate turn in the minimum required 80 pages of loosely connected ranting about their own, misunderstood genius and plans for their future scientific breakthrough.


Booze Barrel: Most students study and party. The Booze Barrel does it the other way around. He has more party badges than your average gang member in prison has tattoos, and somehow he can still remember every one of them. If there is even a slight chance of somewhere being a party in the town, you can't walk within one mile radius from it without bumping into the Booze Barrel. On the other hand, sighting him in the campus or, heaven forbid, library, is about as rare as sighting a genuine Dodo in the middle of a highway. Despite of this, you can still know he exists and hasn't managed yet to drown himself in alcohol, because no matter with whom you talk to, everyone usually knows the Booze Barrel one way or another.


Braggart: The Braggart is better than everyone else in the world and he lets everyone know it. He only became an academic because it supposedly brings prestige. He chose his major based on what subjects were statistically the most difficult to get into. The first thing you will learn about him is his grand future. You can't even say hi to him without hearing yet another lecture on how stupid and worthless the non-academics are. If you want to know new synonyms for those people, just ask the Braggart: practically every second word he ever says is "grease monkey" or something as flattering. Curiously enough, the Braggart is always a freshman. When you wonder on your second year where he has vanished, you will inevitably hear that he dropped out to become a car mechanic.


Buddy-Buddy: The Buddy-Buddy is a completely average and nondescript person whom no one would notice if it wasn't for the company he keeps. You can recognize the Buddy-Buddy by searching for the person who glues himself to absolutely anyone who seems to enjoy even some small morsel of popularity within the student community. Buddy-Buddy will then follow his master or mistress around, always stand behind him saying "yeah" in an argument and laugh at everything his idol says (even when no one else, including the idol, is not laughing.) Despite of being practically nothing alone, the Buddy-Buddy will still look down on most other people not part of his group and feel superior for having so many people (other Buddy-Buddies usually) around him and following the popular guy.


Fanboy: The Fanboy believes in "one size fits all", only he applies it to science (and everything else too). He picks a favorite ideology or thinker and then you can't have a discussion with him without hearing how his favorite ideology or thinker has solved this problem, which doesn't even exist in the context of discussion. Should you drink milk or water with your lunch today? Don't worry, [Insert X] has the solution. Do you think kittens are cute? Bah, what would you know, because [Insert X] says dogs are so much better! For some reason the only problem the [Insert X] can't seem solve is how to legally get away with punching the Fanboy's teeth down his throat.


Fashionable: The Fashionable loves two things in the world. First having someone else tell him how he should be like and then telling everyone else that they should be like that too. The Fashionable is easy to recognize. First read some recent newspapers. Find the most often repeated lifestyle choices and then find the person who claims to follow all of them, no matter if it's contradictory or not. While the Fashionable often fiercely claims to be an individualist, the best argument for his choices you'll ever hear will be the angry exclamation "well, I think it's right!" Another dead giveaway is that no matter how much the Fashionable talks about his choices (and that's indeed much), you won't ever catch him doing anything to actually live up to the words. Is the Fashionable hyping how cool it is to eat what you can find in the nature? You still won't find him in the nearby forest picking berries. And that's good because, if you test his knowledge, you will find out that he would die of mushroom poisoning in ten minutes if left alone in there. Is there some really tasty meat for lunch today? Nah, no, on second thought being a vegetarian wasn't that cool after all. Does the Fashionable love dogs? Bring one to meet him and watch him run away from it. But don't think for a second that this would prevent the Fashionable from trying to convert you to his latest ideology minutes after that. In doing that he is closely related to the Rubber Stamp.


Idunno: The Idunno has somehow managed to slip through the qualification exams and into the university despite of apparently being incapable of saying anything else than his name. The Idunno is a whimsical collectivist to whom the question "does this make any sense in the long run" does not rank even on the top 100 good questions when planning his studies. When you meet the Idunno, he will tell you how he just completed his latest courses in the Latin language, Assyrology, gender studies and mathematics. The only answer you will get for asking what is he going to do with those courses is his name. If you ask what he intends to do next, the answer remains the same. Actually, you could probably ask him if the Earth revolves around the Sun and he would still only repeat his name.


Iwanna: A close relative of the Idunno. Whereas the Idunno doesn't know what he wants, the Iwanna knows exactly what he wants. Unfortunately he still lacks the crucial knowledge of how to actually make it happen. The Iwanna is relatively harmless in the academic world, but you may find him if you work to fund your studies or to get connections. The Iwanna is that student colleague who can't for a minute stop complaining how much this particular work (usually cleaning, being a shop clerk, flipping burgers or some other glamorous student job) sucks and how once he graduates he will become something grander than the life itself. He is also that guy who won't lift a finger unless someone promises him extra money in the paycheck for it, because lifting fingers is not explicitly stated to be his work in the contract. In a few years after graduating you will find out that he is still stuck at that job because he found out that the employers wanted people who had actually done something related to their future jobs during their studies, not the person who had flipped burgers for the last six years without ever lifting fingers.


Questioner: If you ever find yourself in the rare situation of thinking in a mass lecture "hey, this is actually really interesting", hope you won't have the Questioner in the audience. The Questioner is easy to recognize on any given lecture because he talks at least as much as the lecturer, usually more. The professor has barely introduced himself when the Questioner will already have a question. And he will have lots of those. As the Questioner loves his own voice, his questions don't necessarily have to even be relevant for the subject. You can also recognize the Questioner easily by having him first ask some completely trivial question and, when the professor has answered it, following with a lecture of his own.


Rubber Stamp: the Rubber Stamp knows that the best way to win an argument is to stamp people and then argue with the stamp instead of the other person's argument. As soon as you propose that the Rubber Stamp might be wrong, you are at least a Nazi and a racist, regardless of what you were arguing about in the first place. Continue a few phrases further and you will be told your political stance on everything from the price of cheese to the Presidential elections, and you will find out you support values which, prior to the argument, you didn't even know existing. The Rubber Stamp will always be "we", whereas you will always be "you". The Rubber Stamp will also love to make it clear that he is "very emotional about this" and that justifies him calling you with all sorts of funny names. But don't you dare to even raise your voice, because if you do, you are threatening and clearly upset because you can't deal with the Rubber Stamp being right about you.


Seriousy: The Seriousy is the guy who decided to become professor at the age of ten but despite of studying in the university, hasn't somehow managed to realize that none of the actual professors are like him at all. When discussing the other students' works, the Seriousy will always point out the shortcomings of the others, but never positively comment on anything. You can count on the Seriousy to complain when the respondent's 15 page essay didn't have a 10 page introduction chapter detailing the methods and claim it's not scientifically worth anything because it didn't even cure the HIV. The Seriousy is easy to recognize even outside the classroom by following the sound of mock sophisticated speech, using poorly translated and twisted foreign language concepts in place of his perfectly valid native language. In any party he is that guy with whom you can't talk about anything but your or his latest grades.


Teacher: While most students have plans for their future, the Teacher has only one. That is, naturally, becoming a teacher in school. His motivation or the lack of it in the courses is directly related to how he perceives any given course to help him in becoming a teacher. This unfortunately includes group assignments too. If you decide to do the teacher training yourself later in your studies, you may meet the Teacher in there. He is easy to spot because he is the one to complain the loudest about how horrible the students are, how his guiding teacher is a moron and how all the other teachers-in-training get much easier classes to deal with and how he is completely misunderstood by everyone.


Transitory: The Transitory is closely related to the Braggart. Only instead of hating everyone who is not academic, he instead hates his fellow students. This is because the Transitory doesn't really want to study what the rest of the students are studying. He wanted to study something else but was too much of a loser to pass the qualification exams, and thus had to settle for the next (or third, or fourth, or fifth...) best thing. That of course doesn't stop him from telling everyone they are morons, how this field of study is completely worthless, how none of you will ever get employed and how he will be out of here within a year, latest. The Transitory usually changes his major as soon as possible, but curiously enough, when you see him later you will find out that he still has problems finding any friends.




Right, back to being exiled.

[Schroeder]

I think I have met a few of those in my days...(I guess I qualified for being an ancient back in the days).