Kids These Days

Being around people all day long, you get to meet some interesting people. Students in particular. Here’s today’s characters for ya:

Today I was sitting in a cafeteria for two lunches, observing people since no one was talking to me. This one guy holding a Twinkie in his hand called out to a female walking by. "Hey, how about you start eating this end, and I'll start on that end and we'll kiss in the middle?" She walked away. Shut down. Sorry dude, did you really expect that to work? I would have been impressed if it did. Warning: do not try this at home.

About 15 minutes later, the same table had a crowd gathered around it. I couldn't entirely see what was going on, but Twinkie guy was rubbing some other girl's shoulder. What a little flirt. Then the girl blessed herself (it was a Catholic school after all) and then snorts a line of Sour Patch Kids sugar off the table. Eww! The bell rang and they all walked away. That can't be good for you. I don’t really know what it would do, but I think when you snort things it gets into your blood stream faster. Quicker sugar high? I tried googling it, but couldn't come up with any legitimate answer. People said it hurts. I'd believe it. Any readers know what happens?

During this lunch period the woman from Josten's (the class ring company) came up to talk to me three times. Her table was next to mine. Maybe her business partner wasn't as exciting as I was, because she didn't do her work and didn't really talk or acknowledge his presence. She really had nothing relevant to say to me. In fact, I had a hard time following the babble coming out of her mouth. Something about how her husband started the Pennsylvania Josten’s branch and she had to work in the backroom for in for 30 years without pay? (slave labor?) Her daughter’s husband (apparently, the other man sitting at the table) got laid off from his job and has to work for Josten’s too. Then there was some weird child rearing lesson on how she was very strict on her children but lightened up after seeing how bad kids really were once she got to travel to high schools for the job. It was very strange. Unwanted for sure. But I smiled and went along with it.

Finally I went off to my last school. These three kids gave me a run for my money. For some reason I’ve always gotten along well with teenage boys, and today I realized that it’s probably because I can usually come up with a sarcastic come back to whatever they say to push my buttons. Today I had to earn my respect:

So the three kids that showed up at my U- info session, where essentially no counselor was ever present. It’s pretty typically for a counselor not to sit in during the presentation, but usually I interact with them at some point. Here’s the attendees: 1) a girl interested in nursing/radiology tech. 2) a guy somewhat interested in athletic training. And 3) the trouble maker, a guy who’s grades and work ethic will never get him into U-, or probably any other 4 year school. Nursing girl was the first to arrive. She told me she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but her top choice of a school was Lincoln Tech, a two year school. Nothing against the program at all, but students who apply to U- are not usually the ones also applying to Lincoln Tech. She told me she didn’t want to go to a school that had “real classes”. She wanted the hands on learning experience that a tech school offered and never wanted to take a science class again. I don’t know what Lincoln Tech does, but imagine if you want to do something medical you are going to need a real class sometime. It always breaks my heart when students seem genuinely interested in the school coming into the session and they have to sit through a whole presentation only to find out they will never be a high enough caliber student to get admitted. In these instances, I try to not sell the school too hard. She was a senior who really had no idea about college or what questions to ask or where she wanted to be in the country. She just kept saying “this school looks so cool”. At least now she knows a little more about U- and what 4 year degrees can offer.

The next to arrive was the athletic training guy, who would have been a typical audience member except that the presence of Troublemaker riling him up and encouraging him to join in on the fun. Troublemaker was senior as well. According to him, his GPA was way too low for U- so he decided not to hand in the intake card which collects all his contact info to be put into our computer system. He was signed up to take the SAT this past Saturday for the first time but decided to skip them. He thought this was hilarious and was very proud of the rebellious act. He had no plans of ever taking them, so I’, not sure how he plans to apply for most schools. Honestly, I think he just came to the session to miss class. Throughout the presentation, which wasn’t my regular speech but more a give me the hardest questions you can think of and see if I squirm session, he asked every question that possibly came into his head. “What are the parties like? ::Grin:: I’ll shut the conference room door if you want me to” and “New England is a state right?” “What’s marketing do?” “What if I wanted to be an astronaut?” He asked about student organizations and I said there were 473 which is the last count I heard stats on. Apparently in the viewbook said 480 or something. He called me out on it. “You lied to us”. When I tried to explain that some clubs forget to sign there papers and sometimes the counts are different, he made a big fuss on how it was a cover-up and I didn’t know what I was doing. “What if I wanted to be a male cheerleader?” he then asked. He said he always wanted to be male cheerleader but his high school didn’t allow men on the squad. I’m not entirely sure just how truthful all this was, but I went with it. Later on he told me he just got to the school last year. I called him out on it. “You haven’t even been here two years, how have you been trying to be a cheerleader here for four years?” The others in the group Ooooooooh’ed and I earned myself from street cred. Don’t mess, kid.

This was by far the craziest visit I’ve done. I think anyone else would have given up on this group. Or called a counselor, who was still no where in site. In my whole visit, I saw one counselor who said “Let me unlock the room….yes, you have kids signed up…here’s my card.” No hello, no thank you for coming. No my name is so and so. Not a handshake. No welcome to our school. Clearly college visits were not very important to the administration or to the students, as no one took it very seriously. But still I gave them the info, left a positive impression, and ended things with everyone smiling and impressed with U-. All in all, I enjoyed the witty banter and the challenge. I’m hoping the kids realized how great a 4 year college education can be, wherever they may go, and that they need to take SATs and take school seriously to get there and peruse any of the jobs they might be interested in. Saving the world, one kid at a time.

All in a day’s work, folks!