Op-Ed
In Which the Term “Scramble” Receives More Liberal Definition than the AEM Department
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Educate Your Guesses
May 1, 2008 - 12:00amI’ll admit that I didn’t really start reading the Sun until the end of last year, after I knew I’d be writing for it in a few months. I’ve since determined that there’s no model for a good column; if anyone came close this year, it was Shannon with her flow chart. The only consistency I can see is that the ones I’ve written in Libe Café are better than the ones I’ve written on my back porch. Since it’s nice out, I’m obviously writing on my back porch instead of in Libe. The point is I’m not promising anything here. In lieu of any insightful commentary on Cornell and undergraduate life then, let me conclude the column with some obvious remarks on the twin pillars of the American collegiate tradition: the liberal arts education and the senior scramble.
The two phenomena are philosophically identical, both sired by an academic culture that values eclecticism in contrast to early specialization. The liberal arts education is a modern vestige of Grecian ideals, perhaps ironically reinvented in the western hemisphere while largely lost on the Old World. The senior scramble, also very much and art and necessarily liberal, should be thought of as a sort of frenzied, month-long social tango. Envision the last few seconds of a basketball game, in which careful strategy gives way to basketballs hurled from half court. So, as Cornell’s endless reserves of engineers and biologists scurry through the Arts Quad in these last few weeks, despairing over six page papers that stand between them and graduation in the form of humanities requirements, know that the same basic idea explains why Cornellians will similarly delve outside of their immediate social surroundings for the celebrated scramble.
There remains one notable difference between the two. While Cornell appears to fully endorse the scramble, scheduling even a ten day void between exams and commencement that can hardly be construed as serving another function, the liberal arts education enjoys no such institutional commitment.
To some extent, a general sense of disjointedness is maybe inevitable in a university going in seven different directions at once. While the radical experiment in the idea of Cornell is of great value, I’m wholly unconvinced that it needs to imply quite so much hostility toward the value of a liberal arts education. In allowing all of its students more freedom to craft undergraduate experiences that reflect individual interests, Cornell risks cheating them out of the education they would not actively pursue on their own. In truth, I think, very few 17-year-old college applicants can be expected to understand the intangible, long-term, and powerful advantages of a liberal arts education. It would be ludicrous to regard pre-frosh and underclassmen as fully informed and autonomous actors in this decision, and more contrived still to argue that the caliber of education received in each of Cornell’s programs is comparable. So however easy it is to blame AEM and ILR kids for the villainous decline of the liberal arts education, Cornell should take the initiative here.
There is another minor difference between these two traditions of the American university: while paying for a liberal arts education seems like a reasonable thing to do, the idea of your parents’ money as the enabler of the second is really very uncomfortable. But I’ll end discussion on the subject here and finish with the obligatory repertoire.
It’s fairly obvious that my friends are, objectively, much cooler than I am. Much of this column has been inspired by conversations with them, or in the case of my biologist roommates, by their mere existence. In fact, Taro, I want it on public record that I’m more evolutionarily fit than you (see also Jan 31st column). Sarah and Joanna, thank you for putting a new face on racism and advising my writing against the odds that I’d listen. Martha and Heber, do you two even read the Sun? Probably not, I’m wasting my time on you. Julie, Vince et al … my life would be far less sketchy sans you guys. Also, word to the Roosevelt kids, who have truly created something remarkable, and to the Dems, without whom Cornellians would be resigned to drinking conservatively. Kristin, thanks for washing my dishes. Glenn, you’re a philistine and you have a third on your 21st chromosome. And any social science kid who doesn’t have to Google either of those references is proof of the liberal arts education’s value.
The story behind my moniker is one of theft and manipulation. I was biking in D.C. in August and saw a Washington Post ad that read “Educate your guesses.” Ensnared in that youthful fear of plagiarism, I changed it to “Educating your guesses.” Half way through the year I realized that I could stay under the Washington Post’s radar with a deft blend of shoddy journalism and esoteric themes. “Educate your guesses” wins out at last. That I’ve eluded accountability thus far is clearly this column’s greatest accomplishment.
I have little to offer in the way of advice or introspection. I’m possibly as genuinely happy and obscenely apprehensive as I’ve ever been, and more assured of my inability to write on those than any other subjects. I’ll leave the messy business of ascribing meaning to the undergraduate experience for conversations not on these pages, and I’ll stick with the insight I dropped in my first column: all Cornellians worth their salt will spend some period of time in homelessness. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to resolve it via Craig’s List. And as all of us now know, try to keep your scrambling as far away from Craig’s List as possible or you’ll end up in a university-alert email.
Tim Krueger is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at tkrueger@cornellsun.com. Educate Your Guesses appeared alternate Thursdays this semester.