It’s your first week back to school, you’ve had time to catch up with all your besties and heard all about their envy inducing summers not excluding trips abroad and summers well spent climbing fourteeners or hitting the beaches back at home.
But now that summer internships are over and school is starting back up, students are taking the halls by storm and professors are distributing syllabi like automated paper towel dispensers.
This being said, syllabus week has become a proper noun among college students. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, also known as “chillabus week”, the first week back to school is renown for copious amounts of papers handed out by professors detailing the ins and outs and “how-to’s” on classroom success. A typical syllabi outline is as follows:
Page one- Class name,teacher name, teacher email, class hours/days of the week, class description, class prerequisites, TA office hours, office location, textbooks
Page two- learning objectives, grading scale, exam dates, exam locations,
Page three- study tips….
I could go on but I think you get the point. And you will definitely get the point by your fifth class and fifth syllabus when you realize they are essentially all the same just with different colors.
Not only are all class syllabi similar during the first week of school, but most classes share the same frivolous format as the next one. Find a seat closest to the exit, listen to professor introductions, obtain syllabus, exit lecture hall, recycle syllabus, repeat.
As a result of this mellow paced first week back, students take full advantage of it. While there are those few students eager to accomplish what they came to college to do, learn, there are often just as many students who are eager to throw out (or if you live in Colorado, recycle) their syllabi and head to the bars instead. Syllabus week has become a college student’s five-day holiday tradition used for the purpose of commemorating summer. What better way to say welcome back than hitting the town with your friends?
If this is your first introduction to syllabus week and you have already missed out on the festivities, do not fret. Mark your calendars for next year so that you can set down that eight-page rulebook of slaughtered trees and enjoy your real last week of summer.
*Disclaimer: I do not recommend completely throwing out, recycling, shredding or otherwise tampering with your syllabus in any way. Nor do I condone not reading it altogether as those eight pages of rules and due dates might make the difference between you failing or passing a class.
