We’ve finally come to that point in the semester when we can all relax and revel in what we’ve accomplished. While we generally list these accomplishments in terms of publications, scholarships, certificates, and department awards, I suggest an additional method for gauging success in academia.
I present my list of alternative certificates. Please feel free to add your own!
Certificate:
Never letting your students see you cry
With Honors:
Letting your students see you cry in order to emotionally manipulate them
Certificate:
Staying up for more than 36 consecutive hours
With Honors:
Never staying up for more than 18 hours
Certificate:
Successfully pretending to have read something
With Honors:
Successfully pretending to have read something and to have discovered its paradigm to be inherently flawed
Certificate:
Openly admitting you don’t understand
With Honors:
Openly claiming that the socially constructed nature of knowledge calls into question our ability to truly understand anything
Certificate:
Undertaking a project out of genuine intellectual curiosity
With Honors:
Being able to fake genuine intellectual curiosity
Certificate:
Being able to answer any question
With Honors:
Being able to answer any question with another question
Jessica Bates shares her name with Debra Winger’s character’s undercover persona in the 1987 neo-noir thriller Black Widow. However, she doesn’t really recommend that movie.
The Minnesota Review 