For most students, college is a time dedicated to shirking responsibility, posting pictures on Instagram and reenacting the movie “Animal House.” A new initiative at the U hopes to change all of that.
The proposal, which is designed to better prepare students for the real world through education, will focus on teaching students important, everyday life skills.
“Sure, our students can do the basic things like starting businesses, designing nuclear reactors and performing brain surgery,” said Rob Robertson, a co-creator of the program. “But when it comes to the more advanced life skills, such as washing cars and talking to in-laws, most students are completely lost.”
Classes in the new program will focus on addressing a variety of challenging concepts facing the modern graduate. Students already familiar with the basics may be interested in advanced courses such as “Household Plant Watering II,” while those looking to figure out how on earth to get the N64 to show up on the TV screen may find specialty classes such as “Intro to Using Electronics Without the Manual” to be more effective.
Martin Martins, a U professor who will be teaching an upper-division course called “Fixing Mistakes Before Anyone Notices” during the Spring Semester, said he hopes students will understand the value of learning how to navigate life early on. Martins said his coursework will focus mostly on the skills needed to overcome some of life’s most difficult challenges, such as unclogging the toilet and cleaning up the mess the dog made while everyone was out.
Rita Ritas, a graduate student in nuclear engineering, said she thought the classes would help students go beyond their otherwise unchallenging academic coursework.
“All I’ve really learned about life so far is how to send text messages and add friends on Facebook,” Ritas said. “I’m hoping if I study hard I’ll learn to use that thing that makes all of your dishes clean.”
Other students weren’t so enthusiastic.
“I feel like the course content is based mostly on things that my parents should be doing,” said Sean Seanston, a freshman in communications currently living with his parents in Draper. “I mean, why teach me how to mow the lawn when clearly that’s my dad’s job?”
Under the new program, students will need to complete a series of tests prior to graduation in order to prove their ability to face real-world challenges. While specifics of these tests are being kept under wraps, officials said students taking the exams will be able to hold parents, friends, faculty, governments and the world at large accountable for their failures and shortcomings, as this will likely be the case in most real-life situations.
While he believes most students are already entitled to everything under the sun, Martins said he is optimistic that students will react positively to learning things most of their parents learned before the age of 10.
“Students need to focus more on the skills they will need in the real world,” said Martins. “What better place to gain these skills than in the classroom?”
This content is intended as fictionalized, satirical work. Events and ideas presented in this piece should be viewed as fictional.