The Battalion
THURSDAY
June 6, 1 996
OPINION
Page 5
5
Students find
four years
not enough
I used to make
fun of them, but
now I am one.
As a cocky fresh
man four years
ago, I shook my
head at the num
ber of people who
took more than the
traditional four
years to graduate.
What slackers they
must be, I thought.
My outlook on
fifth-year seniority
changed, however, as I began my sec
ond senior year this week.
Although my roommate’s diploma
hanging on the wall of our apartment
room serves as a constant reminder
of my delayed graduation, it has not
really hit me that I have become one
of those whom I used to ridicule.
I have completed three cooperative
education work terms, so I can easily
justify my delayed graduation date.
But the feeling that I’m taking longer
than I should lingers while many of my
classmates have their degrees in hand.
The tendency to hang around for
more than four years appears to be
unique to public universities, where
many people can afford to pay for an
extra semester or two. All of my
friends at universities outside of
Texas have graduated in four years.
The most obvious reason for the
increased number of semesters it typ
ically takes to graduate is the num
ber of credit hours required to obtain
a degree. Earning a chemical engi
neering degree in four years without
attending summer school requires
five 17-hour semesters and one 18-
hour semester. An electrical engi
neering degree requires four 17- and
two 18-hour semesters. And a liberal
arts degree requires 128 total hours,
an average of 16 hours per semester.
Most of our professors would tell
us that this degree plan was consid
ered a light load when they were in
school. Still, something has appar
ently changed.
Some of our more cynical elders
might see our extended college days
as a symptom of Generation-X apa
thy and laziness. However, anyone
who has taken 17 hours in one se
mester can probably testify that he
would not have passed if he dared
sleep more than three hours a night.
I doubt that courses today are more
rigorous than in the past. But both
counselors and students share the
sentiment that 17 hours is too many. I
recall a counselor from my freshman
student orientation telling us that en
rolling in more than 15 hours our first
semester was academic suicide.
So, in reality, a Texas A&M degree
requires four-and-a-half to five years
of study. Very few people graduate in
four years without attending summer
school or transferring at least a full
semester’s worth of credit from AP
tests or credit by exam.
The stigma that summer school is
only for flunkies has been eliminated.
Now, students no longer attend dur
ing the slimmer just to make up a
failing grade — the principle reason
to attend summer school in the past.
For many students, summer is just a
regular semester.
The stigma against students who
take longer than the traditional four
years is also withering. Many serious
and successful students now attend
summer classes and return for a sec
ond senior year. The idea of the
sixth- and seventh-year seniors
might still conjure up images of John
Belushi’s Animal House character,
but fifth-year seniors are now the
norm rather than the exception.
Students who co-op generally take
about five years, and co-oping is viewed
as beneficial, if not essential, to help a
student obtain a job upon graduation.
Summer internship experience is
vital to those seeking jobs, so students
who work during the summers gener
ally have to take classes at night dur
ing their summer vacation or attend
school for an extra semester.
While some parents may wonder
when their child is ever going to
graduate and get off their payroll,
few will object when presented with
the argument that delaying gradua
tion a semester or a year will greatly
improve their child’s employment op
portunities. An employed son or
daughter who took five years to grad
uate will please Mom and Dad more
than one who got out in four years
but cannot find work.
So times have changed. Extended
college careers are not the norm
across the nation, but they are be
coming commonplace and widely ac
cepted in Texas public universities.
JIM
PAWLIKOWSKI
Columnist
Jim Pawlikowski is a Class of’96
chemical engineering major
Mock battles
M y father is
applying for
the position
of colonel within
the Texas State
Army. Although
this organization participates in prac
tical and useful activities, such as es
corting the governor at public speak
ing engagements, one of its main
functions is weaponry demonstra
tions at a slew of battle re-enact
ments throughout the state.
Every time my dad tells me about
the authentic garb, bellowing can
nons and other assorted weapons of
warfare the army uses in their
demonstrations, he gets an unruly
glimmer of malice and destructive
ness in his eye. It’s a truly frighten
ing spectacle to witness coming from
a 300-pound man nestled snugly in
his easy chair, wearing only a pair of
stretched underwear.
Typically, historic battles are re
enacted to visually portray what hap
pened on the battlefield. A large ma
jority of these battles depict Ameri
can Civil War confrontations and in
volve gathering large numbers of peo
ple who pretend to mortally wound
each other on an open field. Great fun
can be had by one and all as by
standers watch grown men grunt,
push, shove and ultimately play dead
with each other in their little hand-
stitched costumes.
In addition, there are other types
of re-enactments depicting medieval
battles. These are generally held at a
large gathering commonly referred to
as a “rendezvous.” Luckily for the
spectators of these mock battles, the
yahoos prancing around the battle
field in kilts and chain mail are just
pretending to fight. If you’ve seen
Braveheart, you know that hand-to-
hand combat in those days was not a
pretty sight.
But there are wartime scenes that
the re-enactments do not depict.
glamorize the
What about the scenes of hundreds
of people suffering from typhoid and
other diseases during the Civil War?
Who decided to leave those parts out
of the re-enactment? Or how about
the people dreading impending am
putations of wounded limbs stricken
with gangrene? It appears no one
wants to play these roles on bright,
sunny afternoons.
To put a strange twist on those re
enactments, what if these people
started acting out more timely and
modern-day warfare scenes, perhaps
from the Vietnam War, complete with
entire villages being burnt to a crisp
with napalm? Or perhaps they could
show scenes of quiet Irish pubs sud
denly being blown to bits by terrorist
bombs. Better yet, how about some
aftermath scenes from Hiroshima
and Nagasaki? Pretty sickening, huh?
Once the reality of warfare sinks
in, the phrase “War is Hell” takes on
a whole new meaning. Unfortunately,
these grisly and graphic aspects of
battle are often necessary to remind
us of war’s horrible consequences.
Thankfully, these re-enactments
do not show the gruesome realities of
warfare. Rather, it seems that the
people reenacting them are trying to
romanticize battles of yesterday and
simply sweep the nasty side of war
under the carpet.
If you asked most participants why
they do these re-enactments, the ma
jority of them would probably answer
that it is camaraderie that brings
them together. Strangely enough,
there is an entire subculture of soci
ety obsessed with inflicting bodily
harm upon one another on a massive
scale. Hundreds of people often gath
er for several days at a time to glam
orize what they consider to be
“quaint” chapters in history’s pages.
Apparently, these people claim to
be celebrating both the era in which
the battles occurred and a more civi
lized manner of waging war represen-
unglamorous
tative of that particular time period.
Thus, they are retelling history by
physically displaying it.
Well, if being beheaded with a dull
battle-axe or getting one’s midsection
blown away with nails and chains be
ing jettisoned from a thundering can
non is your idea of fun, then count
me out.
What these people don’t seem to
realize is that even if these battles
occurred hundreds of years ago, with
out today’s advancements in swift,
modern war technology, they never
theless depict warfare.
I don’t mirid people reliving a par
ticular era’s trades and lifestyles at
these gatherings and rendezvous.
They can have their fun trying to
start fires with flint and steel for all I
care. To each his own.
But a genuine problem arises
when war is glamorized to the point
that it becomes the highlight of the
day’s events. It’s kind of scary to
think that hundreds of people flock
ing to a particular place cannot think
of something more productive and
worthwhile to do with their time.
Now if I can just convince my dad
to start wasting money on my educa
tion instead of gunpowder.
Quatro Oakley is a Class of ’96
management major
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QUATRO
OAKLEY
Guest Columnist
Curfew talk
leaves
in the
L ast week
House of Rep
resentatives
Majority Leader
Dick Arrney came
out of the closet.
No longer must
anxious hordes of
young Republicans
wonder what kind
of music Dick lis
tens to in his spare
time, for he admit
ted to being a
“longtime fan of Boy George.” Yeah, I
know — his kids were shocked too.
Armey revealed this musical pref
erence after calling President Clinton
a “karma chameleon” who is attempt
ing to hom-in on the family values
and crime issues that the Republi
cans feel are their own.
One of the most recent examples of
what Republicans are calling “me-too-
ism” occurred last week when Presi
dent Clinton pledged Justice Depart
ment support to cities and towns that
wish to impose curfews on teenagers.
The president’s new proposal has
raised the danders of Republicans
who claim they have supported cur
few laws all along. The problem is,
curfew laws are impractical regard
less of who champions them.
Curfews have two problems that
make them infeasible.
The first is that they require a
crippling number of exceptions; with
out them, a curfew resembles martial
law. So loopholes are made to allow
teens to maintain gainful employ
ment, attend school functions, run er
rands for their parents and so on.
When my home town of El Paso
planned an 11 p.m. curfew for people
16 and younger in 1992, several resi
dents expressed concern that teens
might not be allowed to attend church
functions without parental escort.
So in order to accommodate the un
known number of adolescents who at
tend late-night prayer-fests, the cur
few ordinance granted an exemption
to teens who are en route to or from a
church event or any other “exercise of
a first amendment right.” That could
include just about anything.
The second problem is that because
of the various exemptions, curfew ordi
nances are always enforced selectively.
Curfew ordinances are not meant to
be enforced consistently — they are
mostly mechanisms by which police offi
cers can legally question teens and send
home those they feel are up to no good.
Most kids cited for violating cur
fews are young minorities. This prob
ably can’t be helped; one of the pri
mary goals of the curfew ordinance is
to send urban gang members home
before they engage in criminal activi
ties, and the membership of gangs is
predominantly non-white.
Unfortunately, even if a curfew
works as intended and rounds up only
the kids with criminal tendencies, it
nabs them for doing nothing other
than being on the street. This is defi
nitely contrary to the notion of “inno
cent until proven guilty.” In this way,
curfews can create a false perception
of racial or class discrimination.
Given the current climate of racial
and class divisions, the urban popula
tion is not ready to accept a law that
is selectively enforced in this way.
Furthermore, curfew laws can never
scare kids into staying home. Even the
threat of violent death doesn’t deter
young gang members from loitering on
city streets. Receiving a curfew warn
ing from El Paso police never kept me
from staying out until midnight.
Because of all these problems, the
El Paso curfew ordinance has faded
into disuse.
Fortunately, Clinton’s endorse
ment is by no means a mandate. The
president’s proposal only promises
that the Department of Justice will
instruct local lawmakers in address
ing legal challenges if curfews are es
tablished. It does not actually require
towns to impose curfews.
As Republicans take easy potshots
at everything from midnight basket
ball to Clinton’s appointees (one of
whom, U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey,
resigned after allegedly biting a
dancer in a strip club), the president
is forced to find some toothless bit of
campaign fluff that can be considered
anti-crime. Curfews offer an extra
family values bonus by encouraging
parental responsibility.
Election years always make Wash
ington a little crazy. A stalwart Re
publican is listening to a drag queen
and at least one federal prosecutor is
taking a bite out of more than just
crime. But the recent dueling en
dorsements for teen curfews once
again show that the campaign bunch
is a culture club of silliness.
Jeremy Valdez is a Class of ’96
chemical engineering major