Syllabus Day: two words, four syllables, and zero meaning to Butler University teachers. Every semester since I came to college, I have foolishly gotten my hopes up on the first day of class. I was led to believe by my friends and popular culture that Syllabus Day was sacred. It was a day of joy, ease, self-indulgence, it was a day where students could go to class for just long enough to hear the teacher read a page of rules. Fifteen minutes of complete and utter nothingness followed by an afternoon of joy and catching up with friends. Alas, I realized we cannot have nice things here at BU. I have 18 credit hours of classes this semester and not a single one of them thought to respect Syllabus Day Observed. But the real gag is this: I didn’t even expect to get out in fifteen minutes this time. No, I came in with a good attitude. I was like ‘Nah, teachers, y’all ain’t getting me down, not today. I’ll give you guys your full class period, no expectations.’ But then the unthinkable happened. Two classes gave me pretests. A test? On Syllabus Day, nonetheless? Deplorable.
However, the pre-tests, in my opinion, weren’t even that bad, not when compared to the alternative. Y’all know what I am talking about – small talk. Good Lord, I thought 2017 would be the year of no more filler small talks during class. Don’t get me wrong – I love getting to know my teachers, but I love doing that on my own time (e.g. office hours). This whole “Welp class, we have 15 minutes left, so I guess we can all go around the circle and say one cool thing about ourselves”, thing should have been left in 2016. Because my cool thing is going to be the fact that I do not eat meat. Which I have noticed is not a “cool thing” after all. In fact, it’s an uncool thing that nobody wants to hear about. Which, honestly, is pretty fair.
In conclusion, is this a rant about nothing? No doubt. Should I just suck it up and get used to teachers wanting to use all of the time they are given every single day of the semester? For sure. Will I? Absolutely not.