By contributing writer Kyle Jensen

Interoffice Memorandum

From: Dean of Students
Date: 10/8/05
ATTN: Liberal arts students
RE: You've wasted your time

After an extensive in-house investigation into the usefulness of your degrees, the Dean's Office has concluded that all students of the Liberal Arts program have in fact wasted countless hours, dollars, and brain cells on what was regrettably referred to as their “higher education.” The following is the Dean’s official response to this issue:

English Majors: You have spent years mastering the art of reading things and then writing other things down about what you read, a skill most learn in ninth grade. While we at the Dean’s Office understand that you spent at least eight semesters earning your degree, we are disappointed to report that you still remain staggeringly unqualified for any but the following professions. 1) Teaching other students how to earn degrees in English. 2) Living under an overpass and eating the trash that people throw at you from their cars. So, unless you're the next Shakespeare, we can all pretty much guess how things will wind up for you.

Insane in the Membrane
An artist's rendering of the psychology of drunkenness. Recently approved by the APA.

Psychology Majors: Your commitment to understanding the complicated aspects of the human psyche is severely undermined by the fact that you know nothing about it. Even though all of your friends told you that you'd be an excellent psychologist because “Like, you're so good at listening to other people's problems and stuff,” you're still going to wind up as a middle school guidance counselor. The others in your field who go on to earn doctorates and start their own private practices will eventually earn fantastic wages. We highly suggest that you find one of those people and try to marry them.

Mass Communications Majors: The Dean's Office is only going to say this once, and we mean it with all of the respect that we can feebly muster: by the time that you graduate, you'll be steady cruising on the U.S.S. Royally Fucked, heading straight for the popular port city of Unemployment Office, U.S.A. We hate to be the ones to break this to you, but if you were a good communicator in the first place, you probably could have picked any other degree you wanted, and gotten the exact same job you thought a Mass Communications degree would have gotten you. Shit, it'd even be a better job. If you are a bad communicator, then our incredible ineptitude, and almost every other Communications department in the country, has no doubt left you sorely uneducated and frustrated; we apologize for any confusion. We should have told you in the first place that Mass Communications isn't a degree—it's bird cage lining.

Philosophy Majors: You can eloquently debate the complex metaphysics of reality, breaking down our conceptual theories of existence to the most basic elements and capabilities of human thought. So can people who smoke lots of weed. And even though yours is a much more respectable resumé than ol’ Johnny Stems ’n’seeds, most employers just aren't hiring salesmen who are prone to say, “Sir, I'm not selling you a time share, I'm selling you the Platonic form of The Time Share.” Unless your intended career path has always been Smelly, Ranting Bum Who Lives in the Alley, you might want to consider calling up ITT Tech very, very soon.

International Relations Majors: After years and years of reading books, papers, reports, and academic journals about how the U.S. has taken one big stinky dump after another on the Third World, you'll become jaded and faithless. Then, you'll decide to go to law school, thus ensuring that you'll have at least 3 ex-wives, a 100-hour work week, and a really big mansion. While most of that sounds unappealing, you'd do pretty much anything for that sweet ass mansion. Also, you're name is most likely Ky Jurgensen.

We hope that this news doesn't come as a too much of a shock to you all. Operators will be standing by at the School of Business, just in case you need it.

-The Dean of Students

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