What is the eternal student? Well, literally, it’s someone who studies forever. It could be said that everyone is, in fact, an eternal student. But I mean that kind of person who is a permanent resident in a university. The advantages of staying in college are numerous, namely you don’t have to pay for your life. Some of the lucky ones are able to scam parents into paying for their stay at colleges, but occasionally the government and other scholarship organizations can be tricked into paying. There are several types of eternal students ranging from the truly dedicated to the wild partiers.
Most of the time, when one refers to an eternal student, the automatic assumption is that of the Truly Dedicated Eternal Student. This is often a student who has chosen random and rather bizarre coursework. Most of the time you will find these students among the Classical Studies or History majors. The reason is simple. Nobody cares about those races except the people who are in them. Who really needs to specialize in Sanskrit? It is a dead language of five thousand years. Therefore, students of these types of majors can always find something old to study and claim the need to study it completely before moving on to the “real world”.
These students can always find something else to study because the stuff has been around a long time. Since no one cares about these studies anymore, these students are free to hide in the sunlight-deprived forensics of dusty libraries and remain free of responsibility. The biggest difficulty in being a truly dedicated lifelong student is lying convincingly enough for parents, friends, the university, and financial backers to believe that the student must stay ensconced in their studies.
The Eternal Multi-Grade Student is a nefarious schemer. This student is the only eternal student to ever earn a degree. And they don’t just get one degree, they get several. The main goal of this type of student is to have more letters after their name than in her name. They will get a BA and a BS and an MA, MS, MPH, JD, MBA, MD, PhD, DrPH, and so on. In a way, this Eternal Student is the most talented and intriguing of all the Eternal Students.
Not only must they possess the intelligence and talent to earn so many titles, but they must convince others that they really need these titles. The danger of being a Multi-Grade Lifelong Learner, however, is that unlike other Lifelong Learners, these people have completed acceptable levels of education. At some point, their financial support will rebel due to the immense financial burden these multiple degrees impose and the student is usually told to go ahead and use their degrees. The best counter to this kind of difficulty is to be educated out of any possible job and so, after a short interval, return to higher education.
Another eternal student linked to the studio is the Vanguard Eternal Student. These students study material on the cutting edge of technology. Often the world assumes these are the first students to venture outside the confines of college life. In this the world is very wrong. Most of the great advances in technology are made by old men and women who made the mistake of dropping out of college and have been trying to keep up ever since. It is true that there are your Walt Disney and Bill Gate, the rare examples of young people who achieve great technological successes. But those individuals are few and far between. The Cutting Edge Eternal Student insists on learning the latest new technology before entering the workforce, in order to be “well prepared”. Cleverly enough, by the time they’re done learning the last skill, there will be new material to study.
The only problem with study-bound lifelong students is that they almost always have enough or more than enough credits to complete their degree. Parents or government officials who notice this often require said student to graduate, ending their free ride. The Eternal Multiple Minor Student manages to dodge these graduation questions by never earning enough credits to qualify as a major in any given subject. These students cleverly craft their schedules to always be without the right requirements at the right time to have a continuous course of study.
Because of these “bugs”, students must take alternate classes where they “discover” new interests and the same programming problem arises. The most common excuse for these students is that they are using college to “broaden their horizons.” Despite appearing to have a lack of foresight, these students are well aware of course times. The only difficulty with The Multiple Minor Eternal Student is that after a period of about fifteen years, the lines of study narrow down. Thus, these students can be found applying for new majors and can be thanked for many of the more curious majors found at universities today.
The student missing from Core Eternal is another student who does not meet the graduation prerequisites. These students, however, study all required coursework in their major(s). These students are prevented from graduating by failing to meet certain prerequisites of the core curriculum. They are different from The Multiple Minors Eternal Student in that their goal is to receive all credits BUT the core course, while The Multiple Minor Eternal Student’s goal is to fulfill ONLY the core course requirements. Obviously, The Lack of Core Eternal Student can only be found in schools with a basic, preferably extensive, curriculum. The difficulty with this method of study is that the student must work hard in his major to counteract the effects of his “failed” core courses in order not to be expelled from school. These students are more easily found supporting the need for a “liberal arts education”; aka a ridiculously long and unhelpful core class requirement.
The eternal transfer student also manages their education to avoid earning any actual credit from a given school. Often these students take a “leave of absence” to “explore” other schools. That way, they trick the schools they attend into not giving them credit while they continue in the college lifestyle. The Eternal Transfer Student must be very astute as the Eternal Multiple Minor Student and plan the course and schools he will attend.
If they are very good, they can successfully fail to get a degree from dozens of universities. The key to this failure is choosing courses at a given school that don’t transfer to another as more than elective credit. A subset of the Eternal Transfer Student is the Eternal Study Abroad Student, which is simply a transfer student from foreign universities. This specialized eternal transfer student is a bit more difficult to maintain, due to the immense expense of traveling abroad. Another common Study Abroad student pitfall is to recklessly fall in love with a foreign city or person and move permanently abroad, thus ending their “studies”.
The latest and most infamous Eternal Student is simply called The Eternal Party Animal. The name speaks for itself. These students are the students who always manage to miss class because they are sleeping with a hangover. These students require very gullible PARENTS. The government cannot be fooled into supporting the habits of The Party Animal for long. The most common flaw among The Party Animal students is carelessness. They are so busy partying that they don’t pass enough classes to stay in school. Therefore, a smart Party Animal will only attend a school that is easy and abundant in fraternities and sororities. Schools that provide such an atmosphere are more likely to indulge The Party Animal and let it thrive. The Greek system is also very supportive of Party Animal by providing instant friends, abundant booze, and final jobs. A word of caution for those considering the life of The Party Animal: Most former Party Animals die of depression, cirrhosis, or venereal disease.
The privilege of Eternity Student is not to be taken lightly. At no other time in your life is it a) acceptable that you don’t know what you’re doing b) normal for people to give you excessive amounts of money and c) expected to do stupid things. If you doubt what I’m saying is true, just look at all the adults trying to go back to college: it can’t be done.