STUDY: Everyone is pretty much over this semester
With three weeks left in the school year, most professors are reminding students that the semester isn’t over. It turns out that many of their students do not agree. Numerous sources within the student body have disclosed to the Golden Seagull that they are “so done” with fall semester of 2016. These students have requested anonymity in order to protect their grades and/or futures. “The truth is that I’m not even pretending to care anymore,” one History major said. “Good grade, bad grade, whatever. My fate is pretty much sealed at this point, so I might as well just use this time to watch the new Gilmore Girls.” In order to confirm the sentiments expressed by our sources, the Seagull took a poll of the Marquette student body. Three hundred randomly selected Marquette students were asked the following question: “Are you or are you not done with this shit?” The results of this survey are illustrated by the pie chart below.
(Final tally: “Hell Yes” 150, “Yes” 75, “Give Me Another Week” 60, “Nerds” 15) “To be honest, it’s, like, a miracle that I’ve been able to give a decent amount of effort up to this point in the semester,” a junior Marketing major. That same Marketing major gave the Seagull a copy of his attendance records. During the first two months of school, he missed only three classes, all of which were due to a bout with the flu. Over the last three weeks alone, he has missed 12 total classes, all of them with no stated reason. When asked for an explanation, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Look, man, it’s just that time of year.” Such precipitous drops in enthusiasm often happen toward the end of every semester, but researchers say that the drop-off at the end of winter semester is often worse. Shelley Lanholm, director of the Marquette Sociological Institute, says that there are a “wide range” of factors behind this. “Our research suggests that everything is blah this time of year. The weather is freezing, it gets darker earlier and you can barely stand your roommate anymore. Plus, unlike summer break, nobody has to think about their complete lack of a plan for the future.” When the Seagull inquired about the data on which she based these claims, Lanholm replied “Idk, I’m just a fake person you made up.” Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the “I’m so done with this” phenomenon is the impact on professors, many of whom share their students’ sentiments. One English professor asserted that it was actually easier for some professors to give up on the semester than for their students. “I can just sort of claim that anything is symbolism at this point and they’ll believe me,” he said with a chuckle. “All these kids think they’re so clever when they B.S. their way through a presentation. What do they think we’re doing?” Fancy Pie Chart by Andrew Goldstein
