A Tribute To The Victory Lap

StuffFratPeopleLike12 years ago

There are many things in this world that get better with age: wine, the chick who played Hermione, and Tim Tebow’s chances of retiring early to become a closeted homosexual preacher, just to name a few, but none of these can compare to the eternal symbol of freedom and higher education known as the fifth year senior.

Nobody’s here to judge how you got to this point. Maybe you conveniently “forgot” to register for that tracking course, and realized it won’t be offered again until next year. Maybe you’ve fully exercised your right to drop difficult classes at any given moment. Maybe you planned to take your sweet time all along. No matter the reason, let’s face the facts about the world today. Your bachelor’s degree is worth about a quarter-dick in this tattered top-heavy economy we live in, so who can blame you for sitting out one extra year of Obama’s reign to gather more useless knowledge from your beloved institution of education? If the miraculous six-figure job of your dreams hasn’t come knocking at your door just yet, maybe you just need to give them a little more time to find you. Sure, that’s it.

Most of the knowledge I’ve gained in my college years didn’t come from a classroom (damn you liberal arts major), but instead through the timeless, and sometimes dangerous slew of memories I’ve gathered on my own time. Four years just isn’t enough time to sip the sweet collegiate nectar (out of a Solo Cup, of course), and any recent graduate will surely agree with this sentiment. If you can swing it, why the hell not enjoy a 20% increase of shenanigans (and debt) to go out on? Your parents might not be happy, but ideally you’ll be drinking enough in the meantime that you won’t even remember their middle names.

There are a few small downsides to hiking through a successful victory lap, but none come close to the feeling of being a grown up professional corporate drone. These are some of the last years of our lives where our absolute bare-minimum effort will still allow us to fall into the “Productive Member of Society” column. While getting “karate-kicking strangers” drunk on a Monday afternoon is only a slight deviation from the norm for us today, as we grow and are forced into responsibility, these prospects grow more and more dim. I’m not saying you can’t unleash your inner Bruce Lee after a few drinks, especially if that guy’s grocery bag full of kale and hummus deserved it (and it did), just that it might not go over so well at events like the company Christmas party.

However you got here, I’d like to personally congratulate every fifth year embracing our fine country’s system of higher learning. While beating the system might be a common goal for our more “independent” peers, in this case taking the road less travelled is sure to be a rewarding journey. Any troubles you may have explaining to your extended family (or your girlfriend’s family for that matter) are bound to be awkward and difficult, but when those struggles come to pass, you shall rest easy knowing you’ve milked this cow for every last drop of sweet alcoholic milk. You’re doing this whole college thing the right way. Have a beer to congratulate yourself, because not everyone can say they’ve achieved what you have. Every bartender and bouncer knows you by name. You’ve become the stuff of legend to each many a sorority house. In fact, the only people who don’t know you are your professors, and who the fuck cares about them?