2008 Woodie Awards
Attacked With a Pointed Stick
Will Virginety Takes On Academia, Open House Question and Answer Time
Micheal Stridsberg
Issue date: 11/7/05 Section: Features
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Welcome once again to an entertaining, informative, and sanity-questioning Q&A session with Will Virginety. Since the last time he joined us, Will has assumed a new position as Provost of the Walter Cronkite Memorial School of Public Perception (president: Terrell Owens). In an attempt to further his understanding of the academic world, Will recently attended a college "Open House." The floor is now open for questions.
Q: What, exactly, goes on at an Open House?
Will: You just had to start with the most general topic you could think of, didn't you? I mean, seriously, you want me to just tell my life story, too? Maybe I should juggle on a unicycle for good measure. Talk about undue pressure. Anyway, this is the basic premise: the entire purpose of an Open House is to tell people how great a school is. However, there are cases when this claim is not, to put it one way, truthful. How are you supposed to convince people that your engineering program is the best out there, when in reality you are probably better off just giving them $40 grand and going to the Bahamas? At least the Bahamas would be more fun. This is just one example of a claim that clearly needs to be reconciled with reality.
Q: And how do you go about doing that?
Will: Quite simply: you lie. Not just with words, but with appearances too. You hire out professors for the day to replace the ones that, in terms of conversation, are about as compelling as a plank of wood. In fact, you could say that planks are better at conversation than these professors, because they are smart enough not to answer when asked, "Does this make me look fat?" Additionally, you produce extravagant video presentations that contain shot after shot of females, to oh-so-cleverly disguise the 4:1 male ratio. Truth be told, all this does is make more males come to the school, because they think they might actually have a shot at a date. This leads to an influx of guys whose social skills would scare off a hooker, never mind a fellow student. This in turn drives away the females, and the result is that you become a tech school.
Q: What, exactly, goes on at an Open House?
Will: You just had to start with the most general topic you could think of, didn't you? I mean, seriously, you want me to just tell my life story, too? Maybe I should juggle on a unicycle for good measure. Talk about undue pressure. Anyway, this is the basic premise: the entire purpose of an Open House is to tell people how great a school is. However, there are cases when this claim is not, to put it one way, truthful. How are you supposed to convince people that your engineering program is the best out there, when in reality you are probably better off just giving them $40 grand and going to the Bahamas? At least the Bahamas would be more fun. This is just one example of a claim that clearly needs to be reconciled with reality.
Q: And how do you go about doing that?
Will: Quite simply: you lie. Not just with words, but with appearances too. You hire out professors for the day to replace the ones that, in terms of conversation, are about as compelling as a plank of wood. In fact, you could say that planks are better at conversation than these professors, because they are smart enough not to answer when asked, "Does this make me look fat?" Additionally, you produce extravagant video presentations that contain shot after shot of females, to oh-so-cleverly disguise the 4:1 male ratio. Truth be told, all this does is make more males come to the school, because they think they might actually have a shot at a date. This leads to an influx of guys whose social skills would scare off a hooker, never mind a fellow student. This in turn drives away the females, and the result is that you become a tech school.