Almost everyone is endowed with a riveting, life-changing nickname in college. You've heard them before: Jo-Beanz, K. Money, Spanky, the Beefer, Frunk, the list goes on. My nickname, you ask? Dinky. But more commonly, I am called by the moniker “Fake Major.”
A day in the life as a fake major begins with the ring of an alarm clock going off at 11 a.m. Fortunately, I get to sleep in — all of my fake journalism courses don't start until at least 6 p.m. My English classes are so fake that they occur at imaginary times that can't even be seen on a clock.
Before I head to my first class, my real major roommate packs her TI-84 calculator and anatomy textbook before she heads to Biology 400-something. Across the room, I side eye her as I stuff my crayons, how-to-dougie textbook and a yo-yo into my Lego Ninjago backpack.
I collect acorns on the way to SQRL 144, a prerequisite I need for my fake English major. Tired from lugging around my backpack of nuts and Crayolas, I take a break to catch my breath outside of the Genome Science Building. All the smart, real majors stare, suppressing the urge to laugh at me. Maybe it's my English major cardigan, or maybe it's the sparkle in my eyes that hasn't been crushed by the chemistry department.
After eating lunch, I skip to my next class, Intro to Media Law. We learn about the Constitution by eating an amount of marshmallows based on the number of the amendment we're learning. We sing “We the People” while throwing sprinkles at each other and dancing around Carroll Hall in colonial wigs. After about 20 minutes of that, our professor explains the tiers of scrutiny as if he were Dora. “Can you say ‘compelling government interest?’”
Then I head to Davis Library to get ahead on some coloring sheets. I ponder going to office hours since I'm having trouble staying inside the lines. Since I'm a fake major and have minimal homework, I even have time to listen to 30 minutes of Talk Tuah for my fake philosophy class.
In intermediate poetry, my professor talks about scansion and iambic pentameter, discussing trochees, anapests and spondees. Suddenly, a pre-med student on his way to a lab shouts “fake major” through the window, knocking us down a peg before we venture too far into the studies of a real major. My professor quickly adjusts, and we begin discussing the duality of the diamond in the sky from “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Next, we start our comprehensive analysis on the revered works of Dr. Seuss, preparing for our midterm on “Yertle the Turtle.” It's a good thing I'm not enrolled in any real classes like calculus or Mathematics 523 because the highest I can count to is one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. I truly marvel at the physics majors who are able to count past three fish.
During my film class, I start getting nervous when my professor assigns us a two-hour film with essay questions over the weekend, but I check Canvas to see that we're watching “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.” This will be much easier than last week's screening of “A Gingerbread Romance” from the Hallmark Channel . I sigh in relief, as if I have just returned home to my small-town winter cottage after meeting the love of my life at a magical Christmas tree farm.
