Recently at Vassar College, a trend has developed among freshmen that does not involve binge-drinking or putting on experimental theater productions. Rather, the most in-vogue thing to do right now for freshmen has been to declare their majors. After pondering why a freshman would declare a major, I decided to consult my Vassar College Catalogue for answers. There, under the section entitled “Idiot Freshmen Moves,” I found this official list:
- You’re a Drama Major
Wow, look at you, you’re such a go-getter! Except if you were planning to be a drama major here, you needed to declare on Move-In Day and have Meryl on speed-dial. But never fear, at least you get some sort of priority for shows now! I mean sure, you’re probably still going to get cast as a doorknob in “Romeo and Juliet,” but maybe one day Vassar will name an entire janitorial closet after you.
- All-Hours Access to the Bridge
Having a rave in the Bridge sounds like a great time and it’s actually super achievable. All you have to do is create a shitty Facebook event titled BYOE (Bring Your Own Erlenmeyer Flask), cover yourself in glow paint and declare a major in the sciences! The glow paint will probably give you some pretty funky skin cancer, but at least in like a decade you can be more involved in curing yourself than walking a 5K.
- You Declared By Accident
We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in your pre-major advisor’s office after telling him that you are “considering” a Comp Sci major, suddenly you’re shaking hands with literally everyone in the department like you’re the Obama of computer nerds, signing a bunch of paperwork, and BOOM! You’re a computer science major. Okay, maybe we haven’t all been there. Some of us are a little more assertive than an adult-braces-wearing member of the Geek Squad. But this surely will make a funny anecdote one day when a little girl asks you to tell the awe-inspiring story of how you got into computer science.
- You Can Always Change It
All your friends are declaring right now and you don’t want to be the only member of your clique without a major to match your monthly horoscope, so why not? One week you could be really vibing with physics and declare, until you remember you left your graphing calculator back at home. It doesn’t matter! You can always change it to, say, the Self-Instructional Language Program. Or maybe you could decide by randomly pointing at a department listed in this thing, that has got to be comparable to an 18-year-old without a full year of college experience picking their major, right?
- The “I Declared!” Button
You lost it already, didn’t you? Goddammit, frosh. How are you ever going to prove to your friends and family that you’re a studio art major if you don’t post a picture with that over-hyped piece of plastic on Facebook? I mean, I guess you could do a charcoal pencil drawing. Or a sculpture. You made a sculpture, didn’t you? Oh my god, you declared, we get it, everyone already knows artists have the most social capital on this campus, stop bragging. Just go hang out with your other art major friends and jerk each other off, okay?