It’s only the fourth day of class and your besties, who you haven’t seen in a month, have been begging you to hang out all week. Your friends’ snap chat stories are filled with videos of loud music and flashing strobe lights; it seems everyone is having a good time and enjoying the so called “syllabus week.” For normal college students, this is typically the first week of class, where professors simply read off the exam schedule, grading system and the absence policy, and then they dismiss class 45 minutes early. Normal college students use this week to ease back into their routine, but also to let loose and have some fun while catching up with friends after the long break. Some even consider this week and extension of Christmas break. However, students in pre-professional majors have never experienced this coveted college experience. Ever.
Unless the entire city of Auburn somehow caught on fire, most professor’s teaching courses of these rigorous majors would never even think to let class out early and even then it’s a stretch. So of course, there is no time to waste this first week of class. Students are expected to have read the syllabus before coming, oh, and don’t be surprised to have a quiz your first day back. While most students wait to purchase books until getting spoken confirmation by the professor, pre-professional students were sent emails back in early December, detailing the four textbooks needed for a single course and the six chapters that must be read before starting class in January.
In any science major or pre-professionals book, syllabus week will always be a distant dream just out of reach, the one college experience we will unfortunately never participate in. But there is an upside to the misery, by the second week of school we’ll be used to waking up in time for an 8 am and back into the swing of the semester while everyone else is recovering from “syllabus week.”