Opinion

I'll usually write my articles about intense outside world-related things (swine-flu racists, the new chancellor not making sacrifices, racist republicans, LGBT rights, racists in general). And I'm sure the majority of you don't really care - unfortunately.

The end is near, this is my second to last column for the year and I want to try to spin this article to something more college related. With spring fever and summer love almost indistinguishable in this Davis heat, a lot of us get confused about what's real and what isn't in college relationships.

In case you guys haven't figured it out yet, classes are over in eight days. For those of you who aren't graduating, you still have at least one more wonderful year to experience the greatness that is Davis and absorb everything college has to offer. For those of you who are graduating, thank goodness we're almost out of here. I mean, Davis was great and all, but I'm so tired of school right now, I can barely make myself sit through the rest of my classes.

In any case, I learned a lot here. I'm not just talking about what I got out of my classes. Although, if we're being honest, a lot of what I spent the last four years learning and writing papers about really isn't useful in real world situations. At least I have some interesting cocktail conversation.

Every day we are bombarded with ambition-probing questions forcing us to think about our future lives in the "real" world. These questions are usually intended to be facilitators of harmless conversation, but they often cause us to develop misconceived notions of success.

Well, these questions can come in a variety of forms.

Learning to be accountable for your own actions is one of life's greatest lessons. From a very young age we're taught that when a problem arises as a result of our previous actions, it's up to us to fix it.

While such an idealized view of personal responsibility looks great in children's books or in an elementary school classroom, it's honestly becoming harder and harder to find real world examples to support such a preposterous belief.

This year marked the second consecutive year in which Safeboats have had a presence at Lake Shasta during Memorial Day weekend.

Droves of college students make the holiday weekend an annual boozefest out on the lake, renting houseboats to do so. In an effort to minimize the effects of binge drinking, unprotected sex, dehydration and other obstacles drunk college students manage to create for themselves, the Safeboat is on hand to lend aid.

If you've ever wondered how much any UC Davis employee makes, it's your right to know. The California Public Records Act mandates it.

To view compensation information, one must go to Shields Library and go to the reserves desk. The data is available in three bound books as well as on CD. Books for each campus are available in one library on that campus.

When you apply to be a columnist at The Aggie, I believe there are two assumptions that you make about yourself: (1) that you know something that others don't and (2) that whatever you know, you think it's interesting enough to tell other people. In fact, when you submit your application, you have to explain these exact assumptions. When I applied sophomore year, I wrote: "Things happen to me, usually lame things, and I learn from them … I just have stories and I like to tell them. That's all" (my eloquence at the time just blows me away).

Attending college is a gamble, and here in the UC system all of us are going for broke. The economy has slipped into a nuclear winter and the job markets we have to look forward to are chilly at best. A degree now means a lot less than it did in 1970. For many people, it seems a safer bet to drop out and learn to fix Cadillacs.

The fifth-year senior and cross country team captain stands ready at the podium, speech in hand. Thirty teammates, their parents and coaches fill the tiny room at his final end-of-season banquet. Standing 5 feet 7 inches tall with a 28-inch waist, he is hardly an imposing figure. Yet the weight of his words and his deeds far surpass his physical presence, a fact not lost on those who have watched him over time.

Dear Super Senior,

I've been seeing a girl for a few months now, and just recently things have been starting to pick up. She's a ton of fun to be around and fits perfectly into my life. Problem is, I'm leaving on a jet plane to Sumatra at the end of the quarter for a six month study abroad trip. I'm a committed guy, and I don't want to give up on what's turning out to be an awesome relationship, but I'll be spending six months off the continent! What sage wisdom could you offer to a man in my predicament?

- Lucky in Love

As an avid truth-seeker, it was hard for me to come to terms with my desire to keep myself ignorant to some things. I used to think that, given two equally capable individuals, the person with more true information can always do at least as good as the other person. And hence, one can only gain from having true information. I still believe this, however, there is one implicit assumption that makes this line of reason not true in all cases.

We are not perfectly rational agents; our mind isn't stored in a vacuum, but in a highly irrational Homo sapien brain. There is some seemingly harmless information that, if known to people, would hurt them because they can't turn off their bias impulses.

There is an increasing clamor for the bureaucratization of college education. For many, globalization reemphasizes the demand for technical expertise. To thrive in the current economic mode is to attain the very specific skill sets employers require - to the extent that "a humanities education," as the New York Times reports, "may become "a great luxury that many cannot afford." The oft-cited resolution is simply to shift the focus of college education to align with global economic patterns.

This approach ignores the fundamental premise of a college education.

Sometimes I'm not sure what I'm doing with my life. I'm not talking about one of those quarter-life crises that so many of you insist on having where you trip balls about what you're gonna do for a living or something depressing like that. I'm sure some of you know what it's like to be sitting in class and wondering why you're getting an education at an accredited university when you could be cussing out paparazzi or taking a baseball bat to something expensive just because. Damn, it must feel good to be a rock star.

It takes a special kind of human being to get away with getting drunk and biting strangers on the leg in Swedish hotels. Some people are just destined from early on to lead lives of chaotic insanity. Like Anthony Kiedis, who lost his virginity at the age of 12 to his father's 18-year-old girlfriend. With permission, of course. Mick Jagger also once stated that he did it at 12 with two girls in a garden shed.

With pen and paper in hand, three students went to a bookstore on the Harvard University campus in the fall of 2007. They were there not to buy books, but to take down the ISBNs of textbooks being sold in the store. When they were asked to leave, they refused, and police were called to diffuse the situation.

The students were collecting ISBNs to put on a website they had created to make it easier for other students to find the cheapest textbooks online. The incident highlighted the struggle students face in trying to combat the high cost of textbooks, a problem that has been acknowledged by virtually everyone in the higher education world.

This morning I was watching a Pussycat Dolls music video and - no, don't leave! Wait! I promise, this is not the intellectual capacity of this column!

So I was watching this video with what appears to consist of five strippers telling me to "loosen up their buttons," and I was thinking to myself, are you coming on to me?