If you have ever taught or taken a class at Lawrence, you know who I am talking about. Regardless of the class topic or how early in the morning it is, this kid is ready to get on your nerves.
Maybe they correct the professor at every available opportunity, or they share details about their personal life way too often. Perhaps you have been lumped with the kid who likes to play devil’s advocate, or worse, the kid who read Fight Club last week and shuts down everything with a heavy dose of cynicism. Whatever the case, this kid is the worst. And there is exactly one of them in every class.
Rarely in nature do things ever work out so perfectly as they do in this situation. Walk into any class on campus, and within 15 minutes you can pick out this kid. There is never more or less than one, which really is incredible. Someone should really do a study about how this kid emerges —were there two in the class until one backed down? Does each class have an empty space just waiting for someone to fill it with noise?
With Lawrence’s recent increase in tuition, a class that meets three times a week for someone taking 18 credits runs just under $170 per 70-minute class session. Do a little more math, and that comes to about $2.40 a minute. Good luck trying not to think about that next time you are too hungover to make it to your 8 a.m. lab.
Anyway, there are two ways to look at this figure. First, you could echo the sentiment often heard around campus whenever something goes wrong. The statement usually goes something like this: “I’m not paying 50 grand a year for the corner store to be closed Sunday mornings!” But for our purposes, we can easily translate that to; “I’m not paying $2.40 a minute to listen to this kid argue with the professor!”
However, if you’re particularly crafty, you could turn this back on itself. After all, you’re paying $2.40 a minute. That entitles you to talk as much as you want, right?
If you nodded in enthusiastic agreement with the previous sentence, you are that one kid in class who talks the whole time. Do your thing, kid. I just hope you are not in any of my classes.
