The Things Sophomores Do On Wednesdays

I spent last week’s Wednesday in the most wonderful fashion possible. Being the new, utterly hopeless sophomore at IMSA that I am, I decided to list some of the worst possible things you could potentially do to yourself while you’re here.

1) The Problem: American Studies Paper on the Civil War, due at 11:59:59 p.m. on Wednesday.

The Solution: Don’t start writing until 8 p.m. the day of, and then suddenly realize that Internet shuts off half an hour early; therefore, the true deadline is 11:30:00 p.m., so better start that paper soon…..! At 10 check, be sure to run out of things with which fill the page count requirement, and if you’re feeling particularly spectacular, start all citations at approximately 11:20:00 p.m. Don’t bother to proofread either ‘cause that’s an “after-you-see-the-grade” problem—just turn it in!!!

The Result: Six pages of solid crap filled with flowery language, excessively magniloquent modifiers, enough semicolons to make Dr. Smith cry, and enough quotations to make Turnitin conclude your paper was completely plagiarized. Submitted precisely at 11:27:43 p.m.

2.) The Problem: Sophomore Class Club Application due at 11:30:00 p.m. on Wednesday (the same Wednesday as above).

The Solution: Go to the interview at 10:10:00 a.m. and pretend you kinda know what you’re talking about, and when you feel like it, copy all the questions from the Google Form application onto a Word Document. Answer them at around 7 p.m. (when you should be concentrating on a six-page paper instead) and don’t bother to proofread your responses (because then, you realize you should be concentrating on a six-page paper instead). Copy and paste everything into the application at 11:28:00 p.m., right after the paper gets submitted. Your roommate, if she’s nice, will be praying for your salvation.

The Result: Unedited garble that’s hardly decipherable and completely contradicts everything you said in the interview a few hours ago. Turned in precisely at 11:31:17 p.m. and yes, it actually got submitted despite a one minute and seventeen seconds violation of the deadline. After that drama….

3) The Problem: MI-IV Problem Set “due” at 8:00:00 a.m. on Thursday (the next day after the above Wednesday)…because you like extra credit.

The Solution: Start doing math the day you should be writing the paper, get most of the answers from someone smarter than you at the study session, and then check most of those answers with various people who are also smarter than you and have the pleasure of living across from you. At around 11:45:00 p.m., recognize the existence of WeBWorK and realize that there’s no way the thing will be finished by tomorrow. Give up hope on receiving enough extra credit to outweigh your transgressions.

The Result: Find someone smarter than you to help with WeBWorK on Thursday evening, pray that your problem set answers are correct, turn in everything Friday morning, and watch with despair as your grade steadily follows a negative exponential curve.

4) The Problem: Cases for Debate Team due on Thursday at 4:30:00 p.m.

The Solution: Don’t write it because you have other stuff to do.

The Result: Don’t show up at practice, and then write everything next week the night before practice.

About the Author

Lauralyn Lin
Yuzhao "Lauralyn" Lin is a rising senior from Libertyville, IL. She's very excited to be serving as Editor-in-Chief with her dear friend and fellow senior, Chandana Tetali, and hopes to develop The Acronym into a thriving, impactful publication that will inspire and change the IMSA community. Find her in 06B for classical music, YA book recommendations, and proud Canadian-ness.

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